What Drives the Evolution of Bird Nest Structures? 6 May 2015

What drives the evolution of bird nest structures? 6 May 2015

How to protect your chicks from predators? Build a history behind the modern-day co-occurrence of dome over them! There is tremendous diversity particular pairs of traits," according to Don among the nests of birds, in nest location, Dearborn, an expert in the evolution of reproductive structure, materials, and more, but we know very strategies in birds. "I am very happy how well nest little about the forces that shaped the evolution of structure integrated into our analyses, but this study this incredible variety. In a new paper published is only the tip of the iceberg, and we hope future this week in The Auk: Ornithological Advances, work can use a similar approach to identify other Zachary Hall, Sally Street, Sam Auty, and Susan factors that may have influenced the evolution of Healy of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland nest structure," adds Hall. test the hypothesis that domed-shaped nests arose as a result of some species transitioning to More information: The coevolution of building nesting on the ground, where the risk from nests on the ground and domed nests in Timaliidae predators is greater. is available at www.aoucospubs.org/doi/full/10.1642/AUK-15-23.1 Hall was completing his Ph.D. work on the neurobiology of nest-building behavior when he noticed that very little work had been done on trying to understand why different bird species Provided by The Auk: Ornithological Advances build such drastically different nest structures. "I thought this was strange," he explains, "because the shape of a nest seems to be the most striking and diverse feature across bird species." The hypothesis that dome-shaped nests resulted from the increased predation risk when competition for nest sites led some birds to begin nesting on the ground was first proposed almost twenty years ago, but techniques at the time did not provide a way to test it. Applying statistical techniques he had previously used in his neurobiology study, Hall and his colleagues collected previously published descriptions of the nests of 155 species of babbler and mapped nest height and structure to the birds' family tree.

Their analysis confirmed that babblers' ancestors likely built above-ground, cup-shaped nests, and that the addition of a dome to cover the nest corresponded with switching to nesting at ground level. "This new study by Hall, Street, Auty, and Healy looks at the evolution of two key aspects of animals as architects: how they shape their homes and where they put them. It shows very nicely how we can take advantage of recent progress in avian phylogenetics to test ideas about the evolutionary

1 / 2

APA citation: What drives the evolution of bird nest structures? (2015, May 6) retrieved 1 October 2021 from https://phys.org/news/2015-05-evolution-bird.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

2 / 2