Behavioral switching in Magellanic woodpeckers reveals perception of habitat quality at different spatial scales

Vergara, Pablo M.; Soto, Gerardo E.; Rodewald, Amanda D.; Quiroz, Madelaine

doi:10.1007/s10980-018-0746-5

Cited by 11 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…Open habitats also were present in this landscape and included patches of shrublands, wetlands, peat bogs, meadows, and ponds, with the latter two being produced by the introduced beaver (Castor canadensis) ( (Table 1). We acquired GPS locations from 24 tagged male Magellanic Woodpeckers [39,28] using ATS G10 UltraLITE GPS Logger (Advanced Telemetry Systems, Inc.) devices, each attached to a very highfrequency transmitter (ATS model A2440, 2.3 g) for later recovery. GPS devices were placed on the back of adult male woodpeckers using a small amount of epoxy to six feathers.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Field observations suggest that Magellanic Woodpeckers move between neighboring trees by selecting and adjusting residence times in each visited tree based on its attributes, spending more time at trees that are highly decayed [37]. The tree decay-stage serves as a cue of habitat quality for woodpeckers, offering them with information about the presence of their prey inside trees, such as the larvae of long-horned beetles (Microplophorus magellanicus) [3,37,38,28,39]. Although movement decisions of Magellanic Woodpeckers have been shown to depend on the availability of senescent and dead trees [37,28] [40,41,39].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The tree decay-stage serves as a cue of habitat quality for woodpeckers, offering them with information about the presence of their prey inside trees, such as the larvae of long-horned beetles (Microplophorus magellanicus) [3,37,38,28,39]. Although movement decisions of Magellanic Woodpeckers have been shown to depend on the availability of senescent and dead trees [37,28] [40,41,39]. Woodpeckers may respond to such habitat heterogeneity by modifying their movement patterns when nding open habitats or intensifying their searching for prey in forest stands with more senescent trees.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Area-restricted search in Magellanic Woodpeckers: importance of tree senescence, forest composition and open habitats

Vergara

Maron-Perez

Caro

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Background Large woodpecker species with stable territories, specialized diets and narrow habitat choices, such as the Magellanic Woodpecker (Campephilus magellanicus), are expected to adjust their movements based on the distribution of available resources within territories. Thus, Magellanic Woodpeckers should concentrate foraging activity in areas of higher quality, a behavior consistent with the area-restricted search (ARS) behavior. Although previous studies have deepened the understanding of how Magellanic woodpeckers select habitats, the assessment of ARS behavior would contribute to the identification of feeding areas important for their conservation and habitats hindering their movement. Methods We addressed the independent effects of tree senescence, forest succession, stand composition and open habitats on the adoption of area-restricted search (ARS) behavior in Magellanic Woodpeckers in a heterogeneous landscape dominated by southern beech forest in southern South America. Using GPS relocations from 24 woodpeckers, we estimated the First-Passage Time (FPT), a measure of the time individuals remain in a given area, with longer FPT values indicating the adoption of an ARS behavior. We determined the effects of habitat variables on FPT using a methodological framework based on Linear Mixed Effect models and a randomization procedure intended to reduce spatial autocorrelation arising from consecutive circles whose areas tend to be overlapped along trajectories. Results Averaged model coefficients showed that woodpeckers spent less time in sites dominated by the Antarctic beech (Nothofagus antarctica) and partially covered by open habitats. Conversely, FPT increased in stands and home ranges where tree senescence was higher. Conclusions The adoption of the ARS behavior in Magellanic Woodpecker is explained by forest composition, avoidance of open habitats and tree senescence. Our results suggest the conservation of Magellanic Woodpeckers in heterogeneous landscapes involve retention of senescent trees and restoring open areas in order to reduce edge habitat.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Area-restricted search in Magellanic Woodpeckers: importance of tree senescence, forest composition and open habitats

Vergara

Maron-Perez

Caro

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In contrast, long-term memory has minimal decay, but exacts a greater physiological cost for retaining the accuracy of information (Cowan, 2008). Although uncommon in the animal ecology literature, a few empirical studies have demonstrated that species can rely on different memory types when making movement decisions (Mettke-Hofmann and Gwinner, 2003;Oliveira-Santos et al, 2016;Vergara et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Some Memories Never Fade: Inferring Multi-Scale Memory Effects on Habitat Selection of a Migratory Ungulate Using Step-Selection Functions

et al. 2021

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Understanding how animals use information about their environment to make movement decisions underpins our ability to explain drivers of and predict animal movement. Memory is the cognitive process that allows species to store information about experienced landscapes, however, remains an understudied topic in movement ecology. By studying how species select for familiar locations, visited recently and in the past, we can gain insight to how they store and use local information in multiple memory types. In this study, we analyzed the movements of a migratory mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) population in the Piceance Basin of Colorado, United States to investigate the influence of spatial experience over different time scales on seasonal range habitat selection. We inferred the influence of short and long-term memory from the contribution to habitat selection of previous space use within the same season and during the prior year, respectively. We fit step-selection functions to GPS collar data from 32 female deer and tested the predictive ability of covariates representing current environmental conditions and both metrics of previous space use on habitat selection, inferring the latter as the influence of memory within and between seasons (summer vs. winter). Across individuals, models incorporating covariates representing both recent and past experience and environmental covariates performed best. In the top model, locations that had been previously visited within the same season and locations from previous seasons were more strongly selected relative to environmental covariates, which we interpret as evidence for the strong influence of both short- and long-term memory in driving seasonal range habitat selection. Further, the influence of previous space uses was stronger in the summer relative to winter, which is when deer in this population demonstrated strongest philopatry to their range. Our results suggest that mule deer update their seasonal range cognitive map in real time and retain long-term information about seasonal ranges, which supports the existing theory that memory is a mechanism leading to emergent space-use patterns such as site fidelity. Lastly, these findings provide novel insight into how species store and use information over different time scales.

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“…We incorporate a context-dependent movement strategy for each agent where it switches between undirected (random walk) and directed (advective) movement based on its perception of resources. Behavioral switching has been demonstrated in a wide range of species at different spatial scales of foraging, such as opossums (Prevedello et al, 2011), woodpeckers (Vergara et al, 2019), tuna (Newlands et al, 2004), and even mosquitoes (Raji and DeGennaro, 2017). Such a switching pattern has been shown to better describe empirical behavioral patterns in bees and caribou than a more straightforward blending of movement strategies (Tyson et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Evolution of Perception: An Agent-Based Approach

et al. 2021

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Perception is central to the survival of an individual for many reasons, especially as it affects the ability to gather resources. Consequently, costs associated with perception are partially shaped by resource availability. Understanding the interplay of environmental factors (such as the density and distribution of resources) with species-specific factors (such as growth rate, mutation, and metabolic costs) allows the exploration of possible trajectories by which perception may evolve. Here, we used an agent-based foraging model with a context-dependent movement strategy in which each agent switches between undirected and directed movement based on its perception of resources. This switching behavior is central to our goal of exploring how environmental and species-specific factors determine the evolution and maintenance of perception in an ecological system. We observed a non-linear response in the evolved perceptual ranges as a function of parameters in our model. Overall, we identified two groups of parameters, one of which promotes evolution of perception and another group that restricts it. We found that resource density, basal energy cost, perceptual cost and mutation rate were the best predictors of the resultant perceptual range distribution, but detailed exploration indicated that individual parameters affect different parts of the distribution in different ways.

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Behavioral switching in Magellanic woodpeckers reveals perception of habitat quality at different spatial scales

Cited by 11 publications

References 65 publications

Area-restricted search in Magellanic Woodpeckers: importance of tree senescence, forest composition and open habitats

Area-restricted search in Magellanic Woodpeckers: importance of tree senescence, forest composition and open habitats

Some Memories Never Fade: Inferring Multi-Scale Memory Effects on Habitat Selection of a Migratory Ungulate Using Step-Selection Functions

Exploring the Evolution of Perception: An Agent-Based Approach

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