Impact of weather and climate variation on Hoopoe reproductive ecology and population growth

Abstract

Preserving peripheral populations is a key conservation issue because of the adaptive potential to environmental change they provide for the species as a whole. Yet, peripheral populations are often small and isolated, i.e. more vulnerable to stochastic events and prone to extinction. We studied a peripheral population of Hoopoe (Upupa epops), a rare insectivorous farmland bird, in the Swiss Alps. We first investigated the effect of weather variation on food provisioning to chicks by Hoopoe parents. Second, while accounting for density-dependence, we tested the extent to which breeding success is governed by weather circumstances and assessed the possible consequences of climate variation on population growth. Provisioning rate and provisioned prey biomass were negatively affected by adverse weather (cool, rainy days), were higher in males and also increased with brood size. Much smaller proportions of molecrickets (Gryllotalpa gryllotalpa; the most profitable prey locally, constituting 93% of chicks' food biomass) were provisioned on days with adverse weather, irrespective of brood size. Rainfall prior to hatching and during the first days of chick life had a negative impact on their survival, and there was a positive effect of temperature on chick survival just before fledging. Reproductive output was negatively affected by precipitation during the hatching period, but was enhanced by warm temperature just before hatching and in the last days before fledging. Our model showed that the variable reproductive output has a strong impact on the population growth: a succession of adverse, rainy springs would cause a rapid decline of the population. This case study confirms that conservation efforts may be obliterated if risks linked to increasing climate variability are not properly accounted for in the management of small peripheral populations.

Multiple Weather Factors Affect Apparent Survival of European Passerine Birds

“…High local precipitation during the breeding season is typically associated with low breeding success in Central Europe [33]–[35]. Additionally, precipitation may affect dispersal, with breeding dispersal (dispersal from one breeding site to another) becoming lower with higher breeding success [20], [36], [37].…”

Weather conditions, brood size and hatching order affect Common SwiftApus apusnestlings’ survival and growth

“…Nestling mortality is mainly due to starvation (Lack 1956, O'Connor 1979, which, in turn, is related to inclement weather conditions (Lack & Lack 1951, Gory 1987, Cucco et al 1992, Thomson et al 1996. Being aerial feeders, Common Swifts are particularly sensitive to meteorological conditions because both their foraging success and the availability of invertebrate prey can be severely affected by adverse weather (Avery & Krebs 1984, Arlettaz et al 2010. Indeed, adults can prolong incubation during periods of bad weather (Cramp 1998), and age at fledging strongly depends on weather conditions (Hudec 1983).…”

Temperature effects on food supply and chick mortality in tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor)

“…Although previous studies have shown that changing food supply often has an effect on energy expenditure and breeding success or chick growth rates (Brinkhof and Cavé 1997; Zanette et al 2003; Both 2010; Barichello and Mossop 2011; te Marvelde et al 2011), few studies have shown this relationship in passerines through direct measures of both fledgling production and food abundance. The availability of invertebrate prey and the profitability of avian foraging on them can be higher at higher temperatures (e.g., Avery and Krebs 1984; Arlettaz et al 2012), but especially so for aerial insectivores (Veistola and Lehikoinen 1997). The problem of food measurement for these species that take flying insect prey from the air is made easier by the availability of suction samplers that produce representative samples of available prey at frequent intervals, but this guild of consumers has the parallel challenge that day-to-day fluctuations in air temperatures are associated with dramatic variations in food supply (Hails and Bryant 1979; Emlen et al 1991; McCarty 1995).…”