Partitioning the effects of livestock farming on the diet of an aerial insectivorous passerine, the Barn Swallow<i>Hirundo rustica</i>

Orłowski, Grzegorz; Karg, Jerzy

doi:10.1080/00063657.2012.748717

Cited by 20 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 33 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Previous studies have shown that the diet and foraging habitat use of aerial insectivorous birds can be altered by agricultural practices, notably by the availability of grazed pastures (Evans et al 2003(Evans et al , 2007Orlowski and Karg 2013), harvesting (Orlowski et al 2014), and by insecticide use (Poulin et al 2010;Nocera et al 2012). Although all of these studies identified reduced, or at least modified, prey availability as the potential cause underlying these shifts, none of them reported concurrent, empirical estimates of prey availability.…”

Section: R a F Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of agricultural intensification on prey availability and nestling diet in Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor)

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Over the last decades, aerial insectivorous birds have been declining in both North America and Europe. Those declines have been hypothetically attributed to a decrease in prey availability caused by agricultural intensification, but empirical evidence remains scarce. Here, we quantify the effect of landscape composition on the abundance and diversity of potential prey of Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor (Vieillot, 1808)) and on nestling diet in southern Quebec, Canada. We collected food boluses from nestlings and compared their composition with spatiotemporally corresponding samples from traps on farms distributed along a gradient of agricultural intensification. The diet of nestlings was mostly composed of Diptera, both in biomass and abundance, but by mid-June, these decreased with increasing proportions of intensively cultivated crops within 500 m of the nests. Trap catches for Diptera and all arthropods combined followed the same trends. Yet, the associations between Diptera subgroups (Nematocera, non-schizophoran Brachycera, Schizophora (Calyptratae), and Schizophora (Acalyptratae)) and landscape composition differed between traps and boluses, suggesting that prey selection was altered by agricultural intensification. Our results suggest that agriculture can alter the availability of preferred prey for aerial insectivores, and further studies should evaluate the impact of prey availability to explain the decline of aerial insectivores.

show abstract

Section: R a F Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of agricultural intensification on prey availability and nestling diet in Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor)

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Our measure of prey abundance was further narrowed to preferred prey abundance based on prey size. Barn Swallows select larger prey items (Turner 1982;Orłowski and Karg 2013;McClenaghan et al 2019). Thus, we considered prey longer than 3 mm in length as large prey (McClenaghan et al 2019).…”

Section: Insect Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does prey availability affect the reproductive performance of Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) breeding in Ontario, Canada?

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Animal populations are often limited by food availability, particularly during the breeding season. In birds, food limitation can impact several components of the reproductive cycle, including the timing of reproduction and reproductive output. Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica Linnaeus, 1758) have experienced a population decline over the past 40 years in North America that is thought to be related to changes in prey availability. We monitored Barn Swallow reproductive behaviour and prey availability throughout two breeding seasons at 10 sites in Ontario, Canada, to test the hypothesis that limited prey availability during the breeding season affected reproductive behaviour. We found no relationship between food availability and number of eggs laid or number of young fledged. Neither did we observe higher rates of second brooding or more pairs nesting at breeding sites with higher food availability. Barn Swallows did not time their reproductive effort to maximize prey availability during the nesting period, but any mismatch in phenology of prey and bird reproduction at a breeding site was not associated with lower reproductive success. The results of this study did not support our hypothesis and suggest that Barn Swallow reproductive behaviour was not negatively affected by limited prey availability on the breeding grounds.

show abstract

“…The method of faecal analysis used to determine the taxonomic composition of the diet of the studied birds is presented elsewhere in detail [31] , [42] . The differences in the taxonomic composition of the diets of these species breeding in this same area in 2011 were analysed previously [31] ; those faecal samples were not re-used or pooled with the data from 2012, however.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The differences in the taxonomic composition of the diets of these species breeding in this same area in 2011 were analysed previously [31] ; those faecal samples were not re-used or pooled with the data from 2012, however. To determine the number of prey items belonging to a particular species, we applied the rule of summation of different chitin parts to the level of one individual, in accordance with previous studies [31] , [42] , [43] . Generally, analysis of faeces is likely to yield a reliable picture of the diet of aerial insectivores, since earlier findings of the experimental feeding of a nestling Barn Swallow conducted by Waugh [1] showed that the proportions of different prey types ingested (including some soft-bodied prey types such as small Diptera) and the proportions recovered in the faeces are in very close agreement.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The investigation presented in this paper (with the practical classification and seasonal changes of invertebrate prey groups) complements both our previous dietary study on the community of these three aerial insectivores [31] , as well as earlier comparative studies on dietary overlap among some European aerially foraging insectivorous birds [1] – [5] , [38] , (cf. [42] for comments on specific methodological differences between all these investigations). We discuss our findings in the context of previously published studies on resources and diets of farmland insectivorous birds and draw practical conservation conclusions on the feeding ecology and biological control of insect pests provided by aerial insectivores in dynamic agricultural systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Functional Invertebrate Prey Groups Reflect Dietary Responses to Phenology and Farming Activity and Pest Control Services in Three Sympatric Species of Aerially Foraging Insectivorous Birds

Orłowski

Karg

2014

PLoS ONE

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Farming activity severely impacts the invertebrate food resources of farmland birds, with direct mortality to populations of above-ground arthropods thorough mechanical damage during crop harvests. In this study we assessed the effects of phenological periods, including the timing of harvest, on the composition and biomass of prey consumed by three species of aerial insectivorous birds. Common Swifts Apus apus, Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica and House Martins Delichon urbica breed sympatrically and most of their diet is obtained from agricultural sources of invertebrate prey, especially from oil-seed rape crops. We categorized invertebrate prey into six functional groups, including oil-seed rape pests; pests of other arable crops; other crop-provisioned taxa; coprophilous taxa; and taxa living in non-crop and mixed crop/non-crop habitats. Seasonality impacted functional groups differently, but the general direction of change (increase/decrease) of all groups was consistent as indexed by prey composition of the three aerial insectivores studied here. After the oil-seed rape crop harvest (mid July), all three species exhibited a dietary shift from oil-seed rape insect pests to other aerial invertebrate prey groups. However, Common Switfts also consumed a relative large quantity of oil-seed rape insect pests in the late summer (August), suggesting that they could reduce pest insect emigration beyond the host plant/crop. Since these aerially foraging insectivorous birds operate in specific conditions and feed on specific pest resources unavailable to foliage/ground foraging avian predators, our results suggest that in some crops like oil-seed rape cultivations, the potential integration of the insectivory of aerial foraging birds into pest management schemes might provide economic benefits. We advise further research into the origin of airborne insects and the role of aerial insectivores as agents of the biological control of crop insect pests, especially the determination of depredation rates and the cascading effects of insectivory on crop damage and yield.

show abstract

Partitioning the effects of livestock farming on the diet of an aerial insectivorous passerine, the Barn SwallowHirundo rustica

Cited by 20 publications

References 33 publications

Influence of agricultural intensification on prey availability and nestling diet in Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor)

Influence of agricultural intensification on prey availability and nestling diet in Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor)

Does prey availability affect the reproductive performance of Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) breeding in Ontario, Canada?

Functional Invertebrate Prey Groups Reflect Dietary Responses to Phenology and Farming Activity and Pest Control Services in Three Sympatric Species of Aerially Foraging Insectivorous Birds

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About