Nest height is affected by lamppost lighting proximity in addition to nestbox size in urban great tits

Abstract

Both natural and artificial light have proximate influences on many aspects of avian biology, physiology and behaviour. To date artificial light at night is mostly considered as being a nuisance disrupting for instance sleep and reproduction of diurnal species. Here, we investigate if lamppost night lighting affects cavity‐nesting bird species inside their breeding cavity. Nest height in secondary cavity‐nesting species is the result of trade‐offs between several selective forces. Predation is the prevailing force leading birds to build thin nests to increase the distance towards the entrance hole. A thin nest may also limit artificial light exposure at night. Yet, a minimum level of daylight inside nesting cavities is necessary for adequate visual communication and/or offspring development. Against this background, we hypothesised that avian nest‐building behaviour varies in response to a change in night lighting. We monitored nest height of urban great tits Parus major during six years and found that it varied with artificial light proximity. The birds built thinner nests inside nestboxes of various sizes in response to increasing lamppost night light availability at the nest. In large nestboxes, the nests were also thinner when a lamppost was present in the territory. Whether this relationship between artificial night lighting and nest height reflects a positive or negative effect of urbanisation is discussed in the light of recent experimental studies conducted in rural populations by other research groups.

Urbanisation and nest building in birds: a review of threats and opportunities

“…While urban birds face many challenges (reviewed in Marzluff 2017) that include exposure to novel predators (López-Flores et al 2009), food sources (Jones and Reynolds 2008;Reynolds et al 2017;Jones 2018), habitat types (Rodewald et al 2013), thermal ranges (Davis et al 2014a), and stressors such as noise (e.g., Fuller et al 2007;Sierro et al 2017), light (e.g., Kempenaers et al 2010;Dominoni et al 2013;Holveck et al 2019) and air pollution (e.g., Isaksson 2015), their expansion and persistence in urban centres offers us many opportunities to understand processes of adaptation to urban living and the development of urban spaces as conservation areas for wildlife more generally. The responses of birds to extrinsic factors in the urban environment play out through processes such as synurbisation (reviewed in Luniak 2004), biotic homogenisation (McKinney 2006;Galbraith et al 2015;Ibáñez-Álamo et al 2017a), and ecological traps (Dias 1996;Leston andRodewald 2006, Sumasgutner et al 2014a).…”

A Systematic Review for Establishing Relevant Environmental Parameters for Urban Lighting: Translating Research into Practice

“…A total of 76 articles revealed evidence of individual impacts of ALAN on birds. Among these studies, ALAN was considered an invasive stressor that reaches bird nests at night, particularly nests in proximity to urbanization [168]. ALAN was shown to alter behavioral responses during flight, migration, rest, and active periods during both night and day, as well during breeding periods and the egg-laying process [169][170][171].…”

Egg cooling associated with nest size in a passerine bird

“…Wooden boxes (made of European larch, Larix decidua) were either small (bottom area 36 cm², volume under the entrance hole 576 cm 3 ), medium-sized (bottom area 121 cm², volume under the entrance hole 1936 cm 3 ) or large (bottom area 210 cm², volume under the entrance hole 3780 cm 3 ). Nests from different box types differed in size (Lambrechts et al, 2017;Holveck et al, 2019), and therefore the use of different box types only aimed at increasing the range of nest sizes. We also used eggs from deserted clutches in 2018 (cf.…”