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Nocturnal incubation recess and flushing behavior by duck hens

Incubating birds must balance the needs of their developing embryos with their own physiological needs, and many birds accomplish this by taking periodic breaks from incubation. Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) and gadwall (Mareca strepera) hens typically take incubation recesses in the early morning an...

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Autores principales: Croston, Rebecca, Peterson, Sarah H., Hartman, C. Alex, Herzog, Mark P., Feldheim, Cliff L., Casazza, Michael L., Ackerman, Joshua T.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8216913/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34188813
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7561
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author Croston, Rebecca
Peterson, Sarah H.
Hartman, C. Alex
Herzog, Mark P.
Feldheim, Cliff L.
Casazza, Michael L.
Ackerman, Joshua T.
author_facet Croston, Rebecca
Peterson, Sarah H.
Hartman, C. Alex
Herzog, Mark P.
Feldheim, Cliff L.
Casazza, Michael L.
Ackerman, Joshua T.
author_sort Croston, Rebecca
collection PubMed
description Incubating birds must balance the needs of their developing embryos with their own physiological needs, and many birds accomplish this by taking periodic breaks from incubation. Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) and gadwall (Mareca strepera) hens typically take incubation recesses in the early morning and late afternoon, but recesses can also take place at night. We examined nocturnal incubation recess behavior for mallard and gadwall hens nesting in Suisun Marsh, California, USA, using iButton temperature dataloggers and continuous video monitoring at nests. Fourteen percent of all detected incubation recesses (N = 13,708) were nocturnal and took place on 20% of nest‐days (N = 8,668). Video monitoring showed that hens covered their eggs with down feathers when they initiated a nocturnal recess themselves as they would a diurnal recess, but they left the eggs uncovered in 94% of the nocturnal recesses in which predators appeared at nests. Thus, determining whether or not eggs were left uncovered during a recess can provide strong indication whether the recess was initiated by the hen (eggs covered) or a predator (eggs uncovered). Because nest temperature decreased more rapidly when eggs were left uncovered versus covered, we were able to characterize eggs during nocturnal incubation recesses as covered or uncovered using nest temperature data. Overall, we predicted that 75% of nocturnal recesses were hen‐initiated recesses (eggs covered) whereas 25% of nocturnal recesses were predator‐initiated recesses (eggs uncovered). Of the predator‐initiated nocturnal recesses, 56% were accompanied by evidence of depredation at the nest during the subsequent nest monitoring visit. Hen‐initiated nocturnal recesses began later in the night (closer to morning) and were shorter than predator‐initiated nocturnal recesses. Our results indicate that nocturnal incubation recesses occur regularly (14% of all recesses) and, similar to diurnal recesses, most nocturnal recesses (75%) are initiated by the hen rather than an approaching predator.
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spelling pubmed-82169132021-06-28 Nocturnal incubation recess and flushing behavior by duck hens Croston, Rebecca Peterson, Sarah H. Hartman, C. Alex Herzog, Mark P. Feldheim, Cliff L. Casazza, Michael L. Ackerman, Joshua T. Ecol Evol Original Research Incubating birds must balance the needs of their developing embryos with their own physiological needs, and many birds accomplish this by taking periodic breaks from incubation. Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) and gadwall (Mareca strepera) hens typically take incubation recesses in the early morning and late afternoon, but recesses can also take place at night. We examined nocturnal incubation recess behavior for mallard and gadwall hens nesting in Suisun Marsh, California, USA, using iButton temperature dataloggers and continuous video monitoring at nests. Fourteen percent of all detected incubation recesses (N = 13,708) were nocturnal and took place on 20% of nest‐days (N = 8,668). Video monitoring showed that hens covered their eggs with down feathers when they initiated a nocturnal recess themselves as they would a diurnal recess, but they left the eggs uncovered in 94% of the nocturnal recesses in which predators appeared at nests. Thus, determining whether or not eggs were left uncovered during a recess can provide strong indication whether the recess was initiated by the hen (eggs covered) or a predator (eggs uncovered). Because nest temperature decreased more rapidly when eggs were left uncovered versus covered, we were able to characterize eggs during nocturnal incubation recesses as covered or uncovered using nest temperature data. Overall, we predicted that 75% of nocturnal recesses were hen‐initiated recesses (eggs covered) whereas 25% of nocturnal recesses were predator‐initiated recesses (eggs uncovered). Of the predator‐initiated nocturnal recesses, 56% were accompanied by evidence of depredation at the nest during the subsequent nest monitoring visit. Hen‐initiated nocturnal recesses began later in the night (closer to morning) and were shorter than predator‐initiated nocturnal recesses. Our results indicate that nocturnal incubation recesses occur regularly (14% of all recesses) and, similar to diurnal recesses, most nocturnal recesses (75%) are initiated by the hen rather than an approaching predator. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2021-05-01 /pmc/articles/PMC8216913/ /pubmed/34188813 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7561 Text en © 2021 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This article has been contributed to by US Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Research
Croston, Rebecca
Peterson, Sarah H.
Hartman, C. Alex
Herzog, Mark P.
Feldheim, Cliff L.
Casazza, Michael L.
Ackerman, Joshua T.
Nocturnal incubation recess and flushing behavior by duck hens
title Nocturnal incubation recess and flushing behavior by duck hens
title_full Nocturnal incubation recess and flushing behavior by duck hens
title_fullStr Nocturnal incubation recess and flushing behavior by duck hens
title_full_unstemmed Nocturnal incubation recess and flushing behavior by duck hens
title_short Nocturnal incubation recess and flushing behavior by duck hens
title_sort nocturnal incubation recess and flushing behavior by duck hens
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8216913/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34188813
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7561
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