Duration of Dependence of Wild Fledgling Mourning Doves upon Parental Care

Hitchcock, R. R.; Mirarchi, Ralph E.

doi:10.2307/3808457

Cited by 17 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Adult Mourning Doves (Zenaida mao~ura) maintain contact with fledglings for up to 15 days postlledging (Hitchcock & Mirarchi 1984). The dispersal pattern from West Key (our southernmost nesting key) supports the hypothesis of some adult contact following dispersal.…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 51%

Postfledging Dispersal of White‐crowned Pigeons: Implications for Conservation of Deciduous Seasonal Forests in the Florida Keys

Strong

Bancroft

1994

Conservation Biology

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From 1988 to 1991, we studied the postfledging dispersal of 31 radio‐tagged White‐crowned Pigeons (Columba leucocephala) from three natal keys in Florida Bay. Immature birds dispersed from the natal keys at 26–45 days after batching, and most young dispersed more than 20 km during the first 10 days postdispersal. Dispersing birds flew either north to the Florida mainland or east to northeast to the mainline Florida Keys. On the mainland, immature birds fed nearly exclusively within Everglades National Park or an adjacent state wildlife management area. On the mainline keys, White‐crowned Pigeons selectively used 5.01–20 ha forest fragments (p < 0.10) during the first 72 hours postdispersal. After this period, dispersing birds showed no preference among fragment size classes but used deciduous seasonal forests more frequently than suburban habitat(p < 0.10). The spatial pattern of dispersal on the mainline keys suggests that, during the first 72 hours postdispersal. White‐crowned Pigeons are not able to reach northern Key Largo, where 69% of the deciduous seasonal forests are protected in state or federal ownership. Protection of large forest fragments, especially on southern Key Largo, should be a priority for maintaining populations of White‐crowned Pigeons. These forests provide a series of “stepping stones” that enable dispersing immature White‐crowned Pigeons to fly to more distant areas where habitat availability is less restricted. This species is threatened in Florida and may play an important role in maintaining plant species diversity in the seasonal deciduous forests of south Florida by dispersing seeds of at least 37 species of trees and shrubs. Protection of sufficient habitat to allow successful postfledging dispersal of this important seed disperser will also protect the ecosystem’s biodiversity.

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Section: )mentioning

confidence: 51%

Postfledging Dispersal of White‐crowned Pigeons: Implications for Conservation of Deciduous Seasonal Forests in the Florida Keys

Strong

Bancroft

1994

Conservation Biology

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“…Post-fledging excursions at sunset and subsequent roosting may initiate independence from the host, thereby minimizing the possibility of sexually imprinting on the host species' phenotype. Solitary roosting has been demonstrated to increase with post-fledging age in a few non-parasitic species, such as the mourning dove (Zenaida macroura; Hitchcock & Mirarchi, 1984) and eastern screech-owl (Megascops asio; Belthoff & Ritchison, 1990), suggesting its potential importance for achieving independence from parental care and initiating natal dispersal. Juvenile birds are not fed during the night, which decreases their reliance on the natal habitat and (foster) parents.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Out on their own: a test of adult-assisted dispersal in fledgling brood parasites reveals solitary departures from hosts

et al. 2015

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Brood parasitic offspring sexually (mis)imprinting on the foster parents is considered one of the greatest constraints to the evolution of interspecific avian brood parasitism. While most non-parasitic juvenile birds learn the behaviours and mate choice preferences from their own parents, social parasites must avoid misimprinting on their host species' phenotype in order to accurately recognize conspecifics. One mechanism to assure accurate species recognition by juvenile parasites is to begin to associate with adult parasitic conspecifics, known as the 'first contact' scenario, whereby adult female parasites facilitate the dispersal of their offspring away from hosts, thus providing accurate referents for conspecific recognition. Using an automated radio telemetry system, we determined the presence or absence (every 1-2 minutes during 3 breeding seasons; 516 315 search occasions) of radio-tagged parasitic adult female brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater), and compared their departures from a forest study site with those of genetic offspring or experimentally transplanted (non-related) juvenile cowbirds within the female's egg-laying range. Contrary to our predictions, we found no support for the facilitation of juvenile cowbird dispersal by adult female cowbirds. Juvenile cowbirds typically were not located within their mother's home range when departing the forest and, likewise, departure events for neither natal nor experimentally transplanted juveniles (< 2%) overlapped temporally with the departure of the genetically assigned mother or other, local radio-tagged female cowbirds. Surprisingly, we found that juvenile cowbirds primarily depart from the host's territory at sunset, when adult female cowbirds are infrequently present within the forest. Our results suggest that a solitary nocturnal roosting behaviour of juvenile cowbirds may facilitate independence from their hosts, thus minimizing the risk of misimprinting on heterospecific phenotypes. This strategy may also indirectly promote conspecific interactions, providing further evidence for the importance of host-and conspecific independent social preferences in the evolution of avian brood parasitism.

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“…A source of potential bias in recruitment estimates from wing surveys was that reproduction for mourning doves continues into early fall. Any dove less than approximately 25 days of age at time of harvest, the average age when juveniles become independent of adult feeding and begin making larger movements from their nest site to feed on their own (Hitchcock and Mirarchi 1984), are unlikely to be available for harvest when wing collections occur. Geissler et al (1987) summarized results from a large-scale study of breeding by mourning doves and concluded that, nationally, 10% of mourning doves did not fledge until after 1 September.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Calibrating Recruitment Estimates for Mourning Doves From Harvest Age Ratios

Miller¹,

Otis²

2010

J Wildl Manag

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We examined results from the first national‐scale effort to estimate mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) age ratios and developed a simple, efficient, and generalizable methodology for calibrating estimates. Our method predicted age classes of unknown‐age wings based on backward projection of molt distributions from fall harvest collections to preseason banding. We estimated 1) the proportion of late‐molt individuals in each age class, and 2) the molt rates of juvenile and adult birds. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrated our estimator was minimally biased. We estimated model parameters using 96,811 wings collected from hunters and 42,189 birds banded during preseason from 68 collection blocks in 22 states during the 2005–2007 hunting seasons. We also used estimates to derive a correction factor, based on latitude and longitude of samples, which can be applied to future surveys. We estimated differential vulnerability of age classes to harvest using data from banded birds and applied that to harvest age ratios to estimate population age ratios. Average, uncorrected age ratio of known‐age wings for states that allow hunting was 2.25 (SD 0.85) juveniles:adult, and average, corrected ratio was 1.91 (SD 0.68), as determined from harvest age ratios from an independent sample of 41,084 wings collected from random hunters in 2007 and 2008. We used an independent estimate of differential vulnerability to adjust corrected harvest age ratios and estimated the average population age ratio as 1.45 (SD 0.52), a direct measure of recruitment rates. Average annual recruitment rates were highest east of the Mississippi River and in the northwestern United States, with lower rates between. Our results demonstrate a robust methodology for calibrating recruitment estimates for mourning doves and represent the first large‐scale estimates of recruitment for the species. Our methods can be used by managers to correct future harvest survey data to generate recruitment estimates for use in formulating harvest management strategies.

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Duration of Dependence of Wild Fledgling Mourning Doves upon Parental Care

Cited by 17 publications

References 11 publications

Postfledging Dispersal of White‐crowned Pigeons: Implications for Conservation of Deciduous Seasonal Forests in the Florida Keys

Postfledging Dispersal of White‐crowned Pigeons: Implications for Conservation of Deciduous Seasonal Forests in the Florida Keys

Out on their own: a test of adult-assisted dispersal in fledgling brood parasites reveals solitary departures from hosts

Calibrating Recruitment Estimates for Mourning Doves From Harvest Age Ratios

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