Extraterritorial visits in a cooperatively breeding songbird are consistent with multiple functions

Smith, Maria G.; Akçay, Çağlar; Shizuka, Daizaburo; Stern, Caitlin A.; Dickinson, Janis L.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.10.012

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Likely due to difficulty in tracking highly mobile individuals or following their movements throughout the course of an entire season or beyond, most studies document only one type of exploratory movement per species. However, multiple different exploratory movements have been characterised within a single species [ 91 ], and is indeed what we expect to observe within migratory songbirds.…”

Section: Ecological and Evolutionary Importance Of Exploratory Moveme...supporting

confidence: 62%

Pre-migratory flights in migrant songbirds: the ecological and evolutionary importance of understudied exploratory movements

Züst,

Mukhin,

Taylor

et al. 2023

Mov Ecol

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Across the animal kingdom, from honeybees to cranes to beavers, exploratory movements to exploit resources, scout prospective territories, or otherwise gain valuable experiences and information that promote fitness have been documented. For example, exploratory movements to investigate potential dispersal targets have been observed in roe deer, Northern cardinals, and tigers alike. However, despite how widespread these movements are, a cohesive definition of exploratory movements has been lacking. We first provide a clear definition of exploratory movements, and use one particular group—migratory songbirds—to catalogue exploratory movements across the annual cycle. The exceptional mobility of migratory songbirds results in exploratory movements not only at a local scale, but also on a regional scale, both in and out of the breeding season. We review the extent to which these movements are made within this group, paying particular attention to how such movements confer fitness benefits, as by securing high-quality territories, prospecting for extra-pair paternity, or even exploiting ephemeral resources. We then zoom in one step further to a particular exploratory movement that has been, to date, almost completely overlooked within this group: that of pre-migratory flights. These flights, which occur during the transitional period between the stationary breeding period and the onset of migration, occur at night and may not be made by all individuals in a population—reasons why these flights have been heretofore critically understudied. We provide the first definition for this behaviour, summarise the current knowledge of this cryptic movement, and hypothesise what evolutionary/ecological advantages conducting it may confer to the individuals that undertake it. As these flights provide experience to the individuals that undertake them, we expect that birds that make pre-migratory flights are better equipped to survive migration (direct fitness benefits) and, due to orientation/navigation abilities, may also reach preferred territories on breeding and wintering grounds faster (indirect fitness benefits). We hope to encourage ecologists to consider such hidden movements in their research concepts and to enhance the framework of movement ecology by this behaviour due to its presumed high biological importance to the annual cycle of birds.

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Section: Ecological and Evolutionary Importance Of Exploratory Moveme...supporting

confidence: 62%

Pre-migratory flights in migrant songbirds: the ecological and evolutionary importance of understudied exploratory movements

Züst,

Mukhin,

Taylor

et al. 2023

Mov Ecol

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“…Those that have seem to support a role in seeking extrapair matings. For example, in western bluebirds, most visits were made by males and during the fertile period of females ( Smith et al 2020 ). However, other aspects of visit behavior in this species suggested a role in prospecting for nest sites, indicating that visiting behavior may serve more than one function, even within the same species ( Smith et al 2020 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, in western bluebirds, most visits were made by males and during the fertile period of females ( Smith et al 2020 ). However, other aspects of visit behavior in this species suggested a role in prospecting for nest sites, indicating that visiting behavior may serve more than one function, even within the same species ( Smith et al 2020 ). Also, a previous study on blue tits found that extra-territorial prospecting predicted extrapair success in males ( Schlicht et al 2015 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This now enables researchers to obtain data on infrequent or elusive behaviors while at the same time reducing the potential for interference by human observers, and has resulted in a number of studies that investigated foraying behavior on a larger scale. A study on western bluebirds, Sialia mexicana , for instance, investigated movements between territories using a radiofrequency identification (RFID) based system over three consecutive breeding seasons ( Smith et al 2020 ). A study on great tits, Parus major , also used RFID technology to track nest-box visits of 80 individuals during the pre-breeding and early breeding period ( Firth et al 2018 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Patterns of extra-territorial nest-box visits in a songbird suggest a role in extrapair mating

Santema

Kempenaers

2022

Behavioral Ecology

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Many animals make visits outside of their territory during the breeding period, but these are typically infrequent and difficult to observe. As a consequence, comprehensive data on extra-territorial movements at the population-level are scarce and the function of this behavior remains poorly understood. Using an automated nest-box visit tracking system in a wild blue tit population over six breeding seasons, we recorded all extra-territorial nest-box visits (n = 22 137) related to 1195 individual breeding attempts (761 unique individuals). Sixty-two percent of breeders made at least one extra-territorial visit between the onset of nest building and the day of fledging of their offspring, and individuals visited another nest-box on average on 11% of the days during this period. Visit behavior differed clearly between the sexes, with males making over three times as many extra-territorial forays as females. There was a strong overall seasonal decline in visit behavior, but this was sex dependent, with females showing a strong reduction in the number of extra-territorial visits before the onset of egg laying and males showing a strong and sudden reduction on the day their offspring hatched. The likelihood of visiting a particular nest-box declined sharply with the distance to that box, and blue tits almost exclusively visited direct neighbors. Individuals were more likely to have extrapair offspring with an individual whose box they visited, but they were not more likely to disperse to a box they had visited. Thus, our results are inconsistent with the hypothesis that extra-territorial nest-box visits serve to inform dispersal decisions, but suggest that such visits are linked to extrapair mating opportunities.

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It’s about Her: Male Within-Season Movements Are Related to Mate Searching in a Songbird

Luepold,

Korner-Nievergelt,

Züst

et al. 2024

The American Naturalist

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Extraterritorial visits in a cooperatively breeding songbird are consistent with multiple functions

Cited by 3 publications

References 35 publications

Pre-migratory flights in migrant songbirds: the ecological and evolutionary importance of understudied exploratory movements

Pre-migratory flights in migrant songbirds: the ecological and evolutionary importance of understudied exploratory movements

Patterns of extra-territorial nest-box visits in a songbird suggest a role in extrapair mating

It’s about Her: Male Within-Season Movements Are Related to Mate Searching in a Songbird

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