Dataset Information

'Green incubation': avian offspring benefit from aromatic nest herbs through improved parental incubation behaviour.

ABSTRACT: Development of avian embryos requires thermal energy, usually from parents. Parents may, however, trade off catering for embryonic requirements against their own need to forage through intermittent incubation. This dynamically adjusted behaviour can be affected by properties of the nest. Here, we experimentally show a novel mechanism by which parents, through incorporation of aromatic herbs into nests, effectively modify their incubation behaviour to the benefit of their offspring. Our study species, the European starling, includes in its nest aromatic herbs which promote offspring fitness. We provided wild starlings with artificial nests including or excluding the typically selected fresh herbs and found strong support for our prediction of facilitated incubation. Herb effects were not explained by thermal changes of the nests per se, but by modified parental behaviours. Egg temperatures and nest attendance were higher in herb than herbless nests, egg temperatures dropped less frequently below critical thresholds and parents started their active day earlier. These effects were dynamic over time and particularly strong during early incubation. Incubation period was shorter in herb nests, and nestlings were heavier one week after hatching. Aromatic herbs hence influenced incubation in beneficial ways for offspring, possibly through pharmacological effects on incubating parents.

SUBMITTER: Gwinner H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6015870 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

'Green incubation': avian offspring benefit from aromatic nest herbs through improved parental incubation behaviour.

Gwinner Helga H Capilla-Lasheras Pablo P Cooper Caren C Helm Barbara B

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20180601 1880

Development of avian embryos requires thermal energy, usually from parents. Parents may, however, trade off catering for embryonic requirements against their own need to forage through intermittent incubation. This dynamically adjusted behaviour can be affected by properties of the nest. Here, we experimentally show a novel mechanism by which parents, through incorporation of aromatic herbs into nests, effectively modify their incubation behaviour to the benefit of their offspring. Our study spe ...[more]

PMID: 29875299

Similar Datasets

Project description:In birds, parents must provide their eggs with a safe thermal environment suitable for embryonic development. Species with uniparental incubation must balance time spent incubating eggs with time spent away from the nest to satisfy self-maintenance needs. Patterns of nest attendance, therefore, influence embryonic development and the time it takes for eggs to hatch. We studied nest attendance (time on the nest), incubation constancy (time nests were at incubation temperatures), and variation in nest temperature of 1,414 dabbling duck nests of three species in northern California. Daily nest attendance increased from only 1-3% on the day the first egg was laid to 51-57% on the day of clutch completion, and 80-83% after clutch completion through hatch. Variation in nest temperature also decreased gradually during egg-laying, and then dropped sharply (33-38%) between the day of and the day after clutch completion because increased nest attendance, particularly at night, resulted in more consistent nest temperatures. During the egg-laying stage, nocturnal nest attendance was low (13-25%), whereas after clutch completion, nest attendance was greater at night (≥87%) than during the day (70-77%) because most incubation recesses occurred during the day. Moreover, during egg-laying, nest attendance and incubation constancy increased more slowly among nests with larger final clutch sizes, suggesting that the number of eggs remaining to be laid is a major driver of incubation effort during egg-laying. Although overall nest attendance after clutch completion was similar among species, the average length of individual incubation bouts was greatest among gadwall (Mareca strepera; 779 minutes), followed by mallard (Anas platyrhynchos; 636 minutes) and then cinnamon teal (Spatula cyanoptera; 347 minutes). These results demonstrate that dabbling ducks moderate their incubation behavior according to nest stage, nest age, time of day, and clutch size and this moderation likely has important implications for egg development and overall nest success.

Project description:In the age of machine learning, building programs that take advantage of the speed and specificity of algorithm development can greatly aid efforts to quantify and interpret changes in animal behavior in response to abiotic environmental factors, like temperature. For both endotherms and ectotherms, temperature can affect everything from daily energy budgets to nesting behaviors. For instance, in birds environmental temperature plays a key role in shaping parental incubation behavior and temperatures experienced by embryos. Recent research indicates that temperatures experienced by embryos affect viability and are important in shaping fitness-related traits in young birds, sparking renewed interest in relationships among environmental factors, parental incubation behavior, and incubation temperature. Incubation behavior of birds can be monitored non-invasively by placing thermal probes into the nest and analyzing temperature fluctuations that occur as parents attend and leave the nest (on- and off-bouts, respectively). When other measures of temperature (e.g., ambient air or operative temperature) are collected simultaneously with incubation temperature it is possible to compare shifts in behavior with environmental changes. To improve analysis of incubation behavior using these large thermal data sets we developed a program, NestIQ, that uses machine learning to guide parameter optimization allowing it to track the behavior of diverse species. NestIQ's algorithm was tested using six species incubating in lab or field scenarios, that exhibit unique incubation patterns. This stand-alone and open source software is operated through a graphical user interface (i.e., no user programming is required) that provides important behavioral and thermal output statistics. Further, measures of environmental temperature can be imported alongside nest temperature into the program, which then reports various attributes of environmental temperature during shifts in parental behavior. This program will improve the ability of avian ecologists to interpret a critical parental care behavior that can be used across diverse incubation scenarios and species. Although specifically designed for quantifying avian incubation, NestIQ has the potential for broader applications, including basking and nesting behaviors of non-avian reptiles in relation to ambient temperature.

Project description:In bi-parentally built nests, there is evidence to suggest that nests are extended phenotypic signals that accurately indicate the quality of the building parent/s. Raptors often use a variety of materials to build their nests (natural, such as branches, but also non-natural objects), presumably due to their insulating properties, their suitability to advertise occupancy of the nest, and to decrease pathogen and parasite loads. However, in raptors where both sexes collaborate in nest construction, it is unclear whether nest building (taking the amount of material carried to the nest as the potential predictor) is an indicator of parental quality, and whether the effort expended by both sexes could constitute an honest signal of parental quality to their partners. Between 2011 and 2016, we monitored 16 nests of Bonelli's Eagles (Aquila fasciata), and we examined data on sex, type of material brought to the nest, breeding experience, nest quality, timing, and nest-building investment prior to egg-laying from 32 identifiable Bonelli's Eagles during the pre-laying period to investigate the relative contribution of the sexes to the amount of nest material gathered. Our results indicate that sex is not a determining factor in nest-building effort, and that females did not increase their parental effort in response to the male's contribution, and supply of materials did not increase during the pre-laying period. In contrast, our models showed that: (1) the type of material supplied to the nest by both sexes varied significantly throughout the pre-laying period and (2) nest-building effort was determined by individual experience and nest quality. Therefore, our study suggests that male nest-building behaviour and investment by Bonelli's Eagles cannot be considered as an extended phenotypic signal. The differential use of hard and green material by both sexes in the early and late stages of nest-building period, and the fact that the more experienced individuals contributed a larger amount of material on low quality nests, are discussed in the contexts of signaling nest occupancy to conspecifics and competitors and the decrease of ectoparasite loads during the pre-laying period.

Dataset Information

'Green incubation': avian offspring benefit from aromatic nest herbs through improved parental incubation behaviour.

Publications

'Green incubation': avian offspring benefit from aromatic nest herbs through improved parental incubation behaviour.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets