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Quail eggs in artificial nests change their coloration when exposed to ambient conditions: implication for studies on nest predation

Quail eggs have been widely used in field experiments, mainly to study factors associated with the risk of nest predation. Some shortcomings of using quail eggs in this type of study have been previously addressed (e.g., these eggs might be too big for some predators of eggs of small birds). Here, w...

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Autores principales: Liñan Cembrano, Gustavo, Castro, Macarena, Amat, Juan A., Perez, Alejandro, Rendón, Miguel Ángel, Ramo, Cristina
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8269738/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34277153
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11725
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author Liñan Cembrano, Gustavo
Castro, Macarena
Amat, Juan A.
Perez, Alejandro
Rendón, Miguel Ángel
Ramo, Cristina
author_facet Liñan Cembrano, Gustavo
Castro, Macarena
Amat, Juan A.
Perez, Alejandro
Rendón, Miguel Ángel
Ramo, Cristina
author_sort Liñan Cembrano, Gustavo
collection PubMed
description Quail eggs have been widely used in field experiments, mainly to study factors associated with the risk of nest predation. Some shortcomings of using quail eggs in this type of study have been previously addressed (e.g., these eggs might be too big for some predators of eggs of small birds). Here, we show experimental evidence of another shortcoming of the use of these eggs in field experiments. Quail eggs exposed to sunlight rapidly faded in colour after three days, both in the visible and UV spectra, and this change was related to the amount of solar radiation received. This caused changes in the camouflage of the eggs, which may be perceived by predators with different visual systems (dichromatic, trichromatic, and tetrachromatic (for both violet- and UV-sensitive species)). Therefore, the results of field studies of nest predation using quail eggs might be questioned in those cases in which the camouflage has been altered due to the rapid changes in coloration, as this can affect the resulting predation rates. We recommend that researchers planning to use quail eggs should perform a prospective assessment of changes in coloration of eggs exposed to environmental conditions in the nest sites used by the target species.
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spelling pubmed-82697382021-07-16 Quail eggs in artificial nests change their coloration when exposed to ambient conditions: implication for studies on nest predation Liñan Cembrano, Gustavo Castro, Macarena Amat, Juan A. Perez, Alejandro Rendón, Miguel Ángel Ramo, Cristina PeerJ Conservation Biology Quail eggs have been widely used in field experiments, mainly to study factors associated with the risk of nest predation. Some shortcomings of using quail eggs in this type of study have been previously addressed (e.g., these eggs might be too big for some predators of eggs of small birds). Here, we show experimental evidence of another shortcoming of the use of these eggs in field experiments. Quail eggs exposed to sunlight rapidly faded in colour after three days, both in the visible and UV spectra, and this change was related to the amount of solar radiation received. This caused changes in the camouflage of the eggs, which may be perceived by predators with different visual systems (dichromatic, trichromatic, and tetrachromatic (for both violet- and UV-sensitive species)). Therefore, the results of field studies of nest predation using quail eggs might be questioned in those cases in which the camouflage has been altered due to the rapid changes in coloration, as this can affect the resulting predation rates. We recommend that researchers planning to use quail eggs should perform a prospective assessment of changes in coloration of eggs exposed to environmental conditions in the nest sites used by the target species. PeerJ Inc. 2021-07-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8269738/ /pubmed/34277153 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11725 Text en © 2021 Liñan Cembrano et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Conservation Biology
Liñan Cembrano, Gustavo
Castro, Macarena
Amat, Juan A.
Perez, Alejandro
Rendón, Miguel Ángel
Ramo, Cristina
Quail eggs in artificial nests change their coloration when exposed to ambient conditions: implication for studies on nest predation
title Quail eggs in artificial nests change their coloration when exposed to ambient conditions: implication for studies on nest predation
title_full Quail eggs in artificial nests change their coloration when exposed to ambient conditions: implication for studies on nest predation
title_fullStr Quail eggs in artificial nests change their coloration when exposed to ambient conditions: implication for studies on nest predation
title_full_unstemmed Quail eggs in artificial nests change their coloration when exposed to ambient conditions: implication for studies on nest predation
title_short Quail eggs in artificial nests change their coloration when exposed to ambient conditions: implication for studies on nest predation
title_sort quail eggs in artificial nests change their coloration when exposed to ambient conditions: implication for studies on nest predation
topic Conservation Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8269738/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34277153
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11725
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