Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

Published in

Wiley Open Access, Ecology and Evolution, 18(4), p. 3583-3595, 2014

DOI: 10.1002/ece3.1189

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Variation in clutch size in relation to nest size in birds

Journal article published in 2014 by Anders P. Moller, Eduardo García del-Rey, Anders Pape Møller, Frank Adriaensen, Alexandr Artemyev, Jerzy Bańbura, Emilio Barba, Jerzy Bańbura, Clotilde Biard, Jacques Blondel, Zihad Bouslama, Jean-Charles Bouvier, Jordi Camprodon, Francesco Cecere, Anne Charmantier and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Upload
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Upload
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Upload
Policy details
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

13 pages ; International audience ; Nests are structures built to support and protect eggs and/or offspring from predators, parasites, and adverse weather conditions. Nests are mainly constructed prior to egg laying, meaning that parent birds must make decisions about nest site choice and nest building behavior before the start of egg-laying. Parent birds should be selected to choose nest sites and to build optimally sized nests, yet our current understanding of clutch size-nest size relationships is limited to small-scale studies performed over short time periods. Here, we quantified the relationship between clutch size and nest size, using an exhaustive database of 116 slope estimates based on 17,472 nests of 21 species of hole and non-hole-nesting birds. There was a significant, positive relationship between clutch size and the base area of the nest box or the nest, and this relationship did not differ significantly between open nesting and hole-nesting species. The slope of the relationship showed significant intraspecific and interspecific heterogeneity among four species of secondary hole-nesting species, but also among all 116 slope estimates. The estimated relationship between clutch size and nest box base area in study sites with more than a single size of nest box was not significantly different from the relationship using studies with only a single size of nest box. The slope of the relationship between clutch size and nest base area in different species of birds was significantly negatively related to minimum base area, and less so to maximum base area in a given study. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that bird species have a general reaction norm reflecting the relationship between nest size and clutch size. Further, they suggest that scientists may influence the clutch size decisions of hole-nesting birds through the provisioning of nest boxes of varying sizes.