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UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Linking UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Linking Avian Life History and Ecological Traits With Environmental Attributes: Investigation of Patterns Across Ecological and Evolutionary Scales A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology by Priya Balasubramaniam June 2014 Dissertation Committee: Dr. John T. Rotenberry, Chairperson Dr. Marlene Zuk Dr. Derek Roff Dr. Kimberly Hammond Copyright by Priya Balasubramaniam 2014 The Dissertation of Priya Balasubramaniam is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As I near completion of my dissertation, it gives me great joy to thank and acknowledge the people who have helped make this journey possible and enjoyable. First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, John Rotenberry. John has been an exemplary mentor and I hope that I have imbibed more than just how to do science from him. I thank him for giving me the support and intellectual freedom to pursue my ideas. He has always made time for his students and has generously shared his knowledge, experience and advice with us. His patience, kindness and encouragement have been vital to the completion of this dissertation and my development as a scientist. I would like to thank members of my dissertation committee- Marlene Zuk, Kimberly Hammond and Derek Roff for their advice and help during the analysis and writing of this dissertation. Marlene’s comments and constructive criticism always pushed me to better my work and I am thankful to her for that. I would like to thank Derek for agreeing to join my committee even though I requested him to at a late stage. His advice and help were instrumental in the successful completion of my projects. I would like to thank Kimberly for always being supportive of graduate students and for her advice and help regarding working in the White Mountains. I would like to thank the following funding agencies who supported various aspects of the dissertation- The Community Foundation, White Mountains Research Center, Ellis Bird Farm, North American Bluebird Society, UC Riverside Graduate iv Division, Sigma Xi, U.S. Geological Survey and California Department of Fish and Game. Besides my committee, many people have helped me through the course of my research. I am deeply thankful to Linnea Hall for her help, support and collaboration. Her assistance came at a crucial time; she generously shared the White Mountains dataset with me and was incredibly patient in answering my almost never-ending questions about the data. I appreciate that she took time out from her schedule to accompany me to the White Mountains and shared her experience and knowledge of the system. I would like to thank Mary Price, William B. Kristan, III, Tony Lynam and Mary Chase for their many contributions to data collection and analysis. I thank the reserve managers of the various study sites and their institutions for facilitating access to their reserves. I would like to thank John Smiley, Denise Waterbury and the rest of the staff at the White Mountain Research Center for helping me during my stay at the White Mountains. Denise Waterbury was always helpful in answering questions and helping with logistic arrangements during field visits. I would like to thank John Smiley for helping me to put up and take down nest boxes from Barcroft. Cornelia Barth took time away from her own dissertation to translate literature sources to help me with data collection. I thank her for her time and generosity. I would like to thank Laurie Graham and Wayne Kaylor for being understanding and accommodating of my crazy field schedule when I was trying to build nest boxes. I would have never managed to get them done on time if it was not for their help. v I would like to thank the faculty and staff of the Biology department and EEOB graduate program- Kurt Anderson, Joel Sachs, Rick Redak, Michael Fugate, Timothy Paine, William Walton, Daniel Hare, Joseph Morse, Larry Li, Esther Valdez, Jon Allen, Mi Kyong Kim, Shardai Williams for giving me the opportunity to teach different courses and for assistance with preparing the teaching labs. Their efforts made the teaching experience smooth and enjoyable. The graduate student journey is incomplete without academic and administrative hurdles. I am deeply grateful to Melissa Gomez, assistant director of the graduate student affairs center for always being in our corner. Many a catastrophe was averted because of her timely advice and help and I thank her for her immense patience and good cheer in helping me deal with those issues. I would like to thank the past and present members of the BirdLab and fellow graduate students in the Biology department. I thank Sarah French for collaborating with me on the fourth corner analysis and helping me remove nest boxes from the White Mountains. Carla Essenberg has been a great friend and colleague and I have always enjoyed our stimulating discussions together. Lijin Zeng has been a wonderful friend and colleague. Thank you for all the dinners and the good times. We started the PhD together and it gives me immense pleasure to be able to finish together. I would also like to thank Quresh Latif, Myung-Bok Lee, Sharon Coe, Teri Orr, Swanne Gordon, Juan Pablo, Gabriel Gartner, Nicholas Shirkey for their friendship, advice and help at various stages of the dissertation. vi My friends in Riverside and the times I shared with them will forever remain with me as some of the best parts of graduate school. I would like to thank Mangesh Bangar, Bhargav Chavali, Arun Panneerselvam, Gayatri Sankaran, and Maithili Ramachandran for their friendship, humor, and for sharing the ups and downs of graduate school with me. I am so very thankful that I had the opportunity to share my graduate school experience with Abira Selvaraj and Divya Sivaraman, for they have been my family away from home and I cherish their friendship very much. Thank you for your support and affection and all the lovely times we had together. My extended family in the US - Rajesh, Soumya, Hema athai, Rama and Sriram- has helped me not feel homesick by welcoming me into their homes. I thank them for their generosity and hospitality. Though far away from home, my friends in India have been a source of strength and support that I can always count on. I thank Rohini Mani and Pavithra Sankaran for being the best friends I could hope for, and for their humor, craziness, love and belief in me. I thank Rashid Raza for his friendship, support, the many discussions on birds and elevational gradients and advice on statistics. I thank Advait Edgaonkar for his humor, friendship and commiseration on the trials of graduate school. Facing the challenges of graduate school would not have been possible if not for the love, affection and support of my parents and sister. Every time, I faltered and doubted myself, their faith and belief in me helped me to persevere and pursue my goals. My parents have always instilled the value of hard work and I thank them for setting such a great example themselves. vii I would like to thank my husband Seshadri for all the joy and happiness he has brought in my life. I am grateful for his love, affection, support and belief in me and am fortunate to have someone who inspires and motivates me to do my best always. Lastly, I would like to thank my high school biology teacher Ms. Bharati. It was her love and enthusiasm for biology and teaching that inspired me to pursue it. Her infectious passion laid the foundation for the journey that has enabled me to pen these words today. viii DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation to my loving and supportive parents ix ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Linking Avian Life History and Ecological Traits With Environmental Attributes: Investigation of Patterns Across Ecological and Evolutionary Scales by Priya Balasubramaniam Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology University of California, Riverside, June 2014 Dr. John T. Rotenberry, Chairperson Natural selection favors traits that enhance fitness in a species and species occur in habitats for which they have suitable traits. These represent evolutionary and ecological processes respectively. Elucidating the relationships between species life history, ecological traits and environmental attributes is necessary to understand the factors shaping the evolution of traits and to gain a mechanistic understanding of communities so we may be able to predict their responses to environmental change. In the first chapter, I analyze distribution patterns of a breeding bird community along an elevational gradient to test for distinct associations of traits with environmental variation associated with elevation. Communities in high elevations have species with longer nestling periods and wherein males perform incubation feeding. These patterns are similar to those observed in comparisons across phylogenetically paired taxa and x demonstrate that selection pressures across elevational gradients select for similar traits despite phylogenetic histories. In the second chapter, I analyze relationships between life history, ecological traits and environmental attributes across multiple spatial scales in a breeding bird community distributed in a vegetation type subjected to rapid anthropogenic disturbance in the form of urbanization, agriculture, exotic grass invasion. Disturbance variables were associated with larger body mass, residents, disturbance tolerance. Foraging behaviors such as probing and bark gleaning responded negatively to disturbance and can serve as indicators for future monitoring. Seed eating, ground foraging, rock nesting and gleaning were related positively to disturbance and native vegetation attributes indicating species with these traits may better cope with environmental change. In the third chapter, I analyzed life history variation in galliforms along elevational gradients to test the hypothesis that high elevation environments select for a trade-off of reduced fecundity and increased investment in offspring quality.
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