Mineralogical and textural characteristics of nest building geomaterials used by three sympatric mud-nesting hirundine species

Abstract

Many hirundine species construct their nests by carrying mud particles from adjacent areas. This study aimed to investigate for the first time the materials that mud-nesting hirundines choose for nest construction from a mineralogical and sedimentological perspective. For this purpose, we sampled nests of three sympatric species, namely the Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica), the Red-rumped Swallow (Cecropis daurica) and the House Martin (Delichon urbicum), from southeastern Europe. Our results showed that all species tend to use clay minerals as a cement and especially smectite and illite and if these minerals are not present in the adjacent area, they use halloysite, kaolinite or chlorite. The amounts of clay minerals in the nests are generally low indicating that the studied species can accurately identify the properties of the nesting materials. Most of the non clay minerals that they use are the common, easily accessible colourless or white minerals with low specific gravity values such as quartz, feldspars and calcite. Grain size distribution analysis revealed that the amount of clay sized grains in the mud nests of all three species is relatively low, while the amount of larger grain particles decreases when the size of the non clay minerals is small. The Red-rumped Swallow showed an increasing preference for larger grain size particles and quartz, the Barn Swallow for finer grain size particles and calcite, and the preferences of the House Martin are in between the other two species. The three hirundine species present different nest building strategies and depending on the nest architecture, each of them seems to show preference for specific minerals and specific grain sizes.

Localized habitat affects size and materials used in the construction of Common Redstart Phoenicurus phoenicurus nests

“…Woody materials of differing structural characteristics are used in different parts of the nest in thrushes and finches (Biddle et al 2018b). Swallows and martins use different soil types in their mud nests, which affect the structural strength of the nest walls (Kilgore & Knudsen 1977, Papoulis et al 2018. Animal-derived materials have low thermal conductance and serve as insulation in nests (Hilton et al 2004, Deeming et al 2020b.…”

Investigating physical and mechanical properties of nest soils used by mud dauber wasps from a geotechnical engineering perspective

“…Similarly, soil properties play a critical role in the quality of nests of other animals that build their nests with soil. Characterizations of soil types and properties were conducted on nest soils used by termites and hirundine species 21 , 22 . It has been shown that these animals use specific soil types, cementation additives, and unique construction techniques to improve soil properties for nest construction.…”

“…Due to the platy shape of clay particles, the water is sandwiched between the platy clay particles, developing high capillary attraction (i.e., matric suction or capillary cohesion) 25 . Similarly, hirundine species use clay minerals and saliva as gluing agents to cohere with collected sandy and silty soils for nest construction 22 , 26 . Specific data on the soil type of Sceliphron mud dauber nests have been reported before by Polidori et al 15 , who reported that the nest soil was composed of about 55% sand and 45% silt and was independent of geographical location.…”

Using citizen science to assess drivers of Common House Martin Delichon urbicum breeding performance

“…Although the importance of different geomaterials used for nest construction has been investigated (Papoulis et al . 2018), there appear to be no studies on how the surface material of the building might affect breeding performance.…”

“…Historically, mud-nestbuilding hirundines nest on cliff and rock faces, but those nesting on buildings have to construct nests on modern materials such as plastic or concrete. Although the importance of different geomaterials used for nest construction has been investigated (Papoulis et al 2018), there appear to be no studies on how the surface material of the building might affect breeding performance.…”