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Social dynamics of core members in mixed-species bird flocks change across a gradient of foraging habitat quality

Social associations within mixed-species bird flocks can promote information flow about food availability and provide predator avoidance benefits. The relationship between flocking propensity, foraging habitat quality, and interspecific competition can be altered by human-induced habitat degradation...

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Autores principales: (Gentry) Richardson, Katherine E., Roche, Daniel P., Mugel, Stephen G., Lancaster, Nolan D., Sieving, Kathryn E., Freeberg, Todd M., Lucas, Jeffrey R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8809581/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35108278
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262385
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author (Gentry) Richardson, Katherine E.
Roche, Daniel P.
Mugel, Stephen G.
Lancaster, Nolan D.
Sieving, Kathryn E.
Freeberg, Todd M.
Lucas, Jeffrey R.
author_facet (Gentry) Richardson, Katherine E.
Roche, Daniel P.
Mugel, Stephen G.
Lancaster, Nolan D.
Sieving, Kathryn E.
Freeberg, Todd M.
Lucas, Jeffrey R.
author_sort (Gentry) Richardson, Katherine E.
collection PubMed
description Social associations within mixed-species bird flocks can promote information flow about food availability and provide predator avoidance benefits. The relationship between flocking propensity, foraging habitat quality, and interspecific competition can be altered by human-induced habitat degradation. Here we take a close look at sociality within two ecologically important flock-leader (core) species, the Carolina chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) and tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor), to better understand how degradation of foraging habitat quality affects mixed-species flocking dynamics. We compared interactions of free ranging wild birds across a gradient of foraging habitat quality in three managed forest remnants. Specifically, we examined aspects of the social network at each site, including network density, modularity, and species assortativity. Differences in the social networks between each end of our habitat gradient suggest that elevated levels of interspecific association are more valuable in the habitat with low quality foraging conditions. This conclusion is supported by two additional findings: First, foraging height for the subordinate Carolina chickadee relative to the tufted titmouse decreased with an increase in the number of satellite species in the most disturbed site but not in the other two sites. Second, the chickadee gargle call rate, an acoustic signal emitted during agonistic encounters between conspecifics, was relatively higher at the high-quality site. Collectively, these results suggest an increase in heterospecific associations increases the value of cross-species information flow in degraded habitats.
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spelling pubmed-88095812022-02-03 Social dynamics of core members in mixed-species bird flocks change across a gradient of foraging habitat quality (Gentry) Richardson, Katherine E. Roche, Daniel P. Mugel, Stephen G. Lancaster, Nolan D. Sieving, Kathryn E. Freeberg, Todd M. Lucas, Jeffrey R. PLoS One Research Article Social associations within mixed-species bird flocks can promote information flow about food availability and provide predator avoidance benefits. The relationship between flocking propensity, foraging habitat quality, and interspecific competition can be altered by human-induced habitat degradation. Here we take a close look at sociality within two ecologically important flock-leader (core) species, the Carolina chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) and tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor), to better understand how degradation of foraging habitat quality affects mixed-species flocking dynamics. We compared interactions of free ranging wild birds across a gradient of foraging habitat quality in three managed forest remnants. Specifically, we examined aspects of the social network at each site, including network density, modularity, and species assortativity. Differences in the social networks between each end of our habitat gradient suggest that elevated levels of interspecific association are more valuable in the habitat with low quality foraging conditions. This conclusion is supported by two additional findings: First, foraging height for the subordinate Carolina chickadee relative to the tufted titmouse decreased with an increase in the number of satellite species in the most disturbed site but not in the other two sites. Second, the chickadee gargle call rate, an acoustic signal emitted during agonistic encounters between conspecifics, was relatively higher at the high-quality site. Collectively, these results suggest an increase in heterospecific associations increases the value of cross-species information flow in degraded habitats. Public Library of Science 2022-02-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8809581/ /pubmed/35108278 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262385 Text en © 2022 (Gentry) Richardson 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, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
(Gentry) Richardson, Katherine E.
Roche, Daniel P.
Mugel, Stephen G.
Lancaster, Nolan D.
Sieving, Kathryn E.
Freeberg, Todd M.
Lucas, Jeffrey R.
Social dynamics of core members in mixed-species bird flocks change across a gradient of foraging habitat quality
title Social dynamics of core members in mixed-species bird flocks change across a gradient of foraging habitat quality
title_full Social dynamics of core members in mixed-species bird flocks change across a gradient of foraging habitat quality
title_fullStr Social dynamics of core members in mixed-species bird flocks change across a gradient of foraging habitat quality
title_full_unstemmed Social dynamics of core members in mixed-species bird flocks change across a gradient of foraging habitat quality
title_short Social dynamics of core members in mixed-species bird flocks change across a gradient of foraging habitat quality
title_sort social dynamics of core members in mixed-species bird flocks change across a gradient of foraging habitat quality
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8809581/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35108278
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262385
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