Differences in Space Use by Common Ravens in Relation to Sex, Breeding Status, and Kinship

doi:10.1525/cond.2012.110116

Cited by 30 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Despite our substantial data set from the Austrian study site, our expectation that factors indicative for social dominance (i.e., age class, sex or breeding status) would influence ravens’ resource use and thus their group dynamics is not supported. These results are in line with other studies, showing no difference between males, females and different age classes concerning the space use of non-breeding ravens 44, 50, 51 . Finding no effect of breeding status, however, might be an artefact of our sampling method at one location only.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Fission-fusion dynamics over large distances in raven non-breeders

Loretto

Schuster

Itty

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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The influence of fission-fusion dynamics, i.e., temporal variation in group size and composition, on social complexity has been studied in large-brained mammals that rely on social bonds. Little is known about birds, even though some species like ravens have recently received attention for their socio-cognitive skills and use of social bonds. While raven breeders defend territories year-round, non-breeders roam through large areas and form groups at food sources or night roosts. We here examined the fission-fusion patterns of non-breeding ravens over years, investigating whether birds meet repeatedly either at the same or at different locations. We combined four large datasets: presence-absence observations from two study sites (Austria, Italy) and GPS-tracking of ravens across two study areas (Austria, France). As expected, we found a highly dynamic system in which individuals with long phases of temporary settlement had a high probability of meeting others. Although GPS-tagged ravens spread out over thousands of square kilometres, we found repeated associations between almost half of the possible combinations at different locations. Such a system makes repeated interactions between individuals at different sites possible and likely. High fission-fusion dynamics may thus not hinder but shape the social complexity of ravens and, possibly, other long-term bonded birds.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Fission-fusion dynamics over large distances in raven non-breeders

Loretto

Schuster

Itty

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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“…In some arctic areas such as Greenland, ravens even migrate seasonally (Restani et al 2001). Non-breeders usually have larger home ranges than breeders, due to the long distances travelled (up to hundreds of kilometres) in the search for food and/or breeding opportunities Webb et al 2012). Our data show that this does not seem to be a general pattern, and that non-breeders can flexibly adopt different lifestyles.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

“…We further predicted that (2) this would result in very high overlap between the non-breeders' activity ranges. Finally, we also predicted, based on recent literature (Roth et al 2004;Webb et al 2011Webb et al , 2012, that (3) we would not find differences in space use between males and females. However, we expected age class and experience to have an effect.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 54%

“…habitat suitability, food abundance, nesting opportunity), data quality and analysis (e.g. number of observations) and social factors such as breeding status (Roth et al 2004;Webb et al 2012). In a primeval temperate forest in Eastern Europe, the home range size of breeding ravens was on average around 1300 ha (Rösner and Selva 2005), while in Western Marin County, CA, USA, it ranged from 15 to 480 ha (Roth et al 2004).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Results from several studies on the space use of breeding and non-breeding ravens emphasise that breeders share little space with neighbouring breeding pairs and show strong site fidelity, while the gregarious non-breeders move widely and show intersections of home ranges, especially at rich food sources Marzluff and Neatherlin 2006;Webb et al 2012;Scarpignato and George 2013). Large numbers of ravens are attracted by ephemeral food sources such as carcasses or road kill (Heinrich 1989;Marzluff et al 1996;Stahler et al 2002) and even more by anthropogenic point subsidies such as farms, landfills, and game parks (Huber 1991;Drack and Kotrschal 1995;Boarman et al 2006;Webb et al 2011;Baltensperger et al 2013;Bijlsma and Seldam 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Shared space, individually used: spatial behaviour of non-breeding ravens (Corvus corax) close to a permanent anthropogenic food source

et al. 2015

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Natal dispersal is a well-studied phenomenon that can be divided into three stages: (1) starting from an area, (2) wandering to another area and (3) either settling in that area to breed or merely temporarily stopping there before continuing to wander. During the third phase, we can distinguish breeders from non-breeders, which may show similar or different patterns of space use. Breeding Common Ravens are territorial year-round; non-breeders are highly vagrant but may gather at food sources and night roosts for varying lengths of time. In contrast to the wandering phase, little is known about the space use of ravens at such ''stop'' sites. Here, we used radio telemetry to investigate the space use of 21 non-breeding ravens in the Austrian Alps during a stop stage at an anthropogenic food source. The tagged ravens were present in 69.2 % of the relocation attempts. They used only 27.0 ha (range 6.7-59.7 ha, 95 % utilisation distribution) of the study area, and their activity ranges strongly overlapped with each other. However, within this shared space, sub/adult non-breeders could be found at individually distinct locations, while juveniles showed similar spatial distributions. These results, combined with reported long-distance movements, underline the high behavioural flexibility of non-breeding ravens, which may be a reason for their success in very different habitats throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

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Remote estimation of overwintering home ranges in an elusive, migratory nocturnal bird

Tonra

Wright

Matthews

2019

Ecology and Evolution

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Due to a long running research bias toward the breeding season, there are major gaps in knowledge on the basic nonbreeding ecology of many species, preventing a full‐annual cycle focus in ecology and conservation. Exacerbating this problem is the fact that many species are extremely difficult to detect outside of breeding. Here, we demonstrate a partial solution to this problem by using archival GPS tags to examine the overwintering ecology of a migratory nocturnal bird, the eastern whip‐poor‐will (Antrostomus vociferous). We deployed tags on 21 individuals and were able to recover 11 (52%) one year later. Tags collected high precision (approx. 10 m) points throughout the nonbreeding period. With continuous time movement models, we used these data to estimate overwintering home ranges. All individuals exhibited at least one bounded home range during this phase of the annual cycle, three of eleven had two wintering locations, and home range area ranged from 0.50 to 10.85 ha. All overwintering home ranges contained closed‐canopy forest land cover (42%–100%), and no other land cover type represented >40% of any home range. We found some evidence, with caveats, that total edge within the landscape surrounding the home range was negatively related to home range area. The prevalence of contiguous closed‐canopy forest cover in overwintering home ranges contrasts with apparent breeding habitat preferences, which includes clear‐cuts and other, more open, habitats. This study is the first to reveal key aspects of overwintering space use in this species by using archival GPS to overcome both logistical and methodological limitations. Expanded use of such technology is critical to gathering basic ecological and distributional data, necessary for achieving a more complete understanding of full‐annual cycles of animal populations.

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Differences in Space Use by Common Ravens in Relation to Sex, Breeding Status, and Kinship

Cited by 30 publications

References 59 publications

Fission-fusion dynamics over large distances in raven non-breeders

Fission-fusion dynamics over large distances in raven non-breeders

Shared space, individually used: spatial behaviour of non-breeding ravens (Corvus corax) close to a permanent anthropogenic food source

Remote estimation of overwintering home ranges in an elusive, migratory nocturnal bird

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