Great tits feed their nestlings with more but smaller prey items and fewer caterpillars in cities than in forests.

ABSTRACT: Rapidly increasing urbanisation is one of the most significant anthropogenic environmental changes which can affect demographic traits of animal populations, for example resulting in reduced reproductive success. The food limitation hypothesis suggests that the shortage of high-quality nestling food in cities is a major factor responsible for the reduced reproductive performance in insectivorous birds. To study this explanation, we collected data on the parental provisioning behaviour of urban and forest great tits (Parus major) in three years that varied both in caterpillar availability (the main food of great tit nestlings) and in reproductive success of the birds. In all years, urban parents provisioned caterpillars in a smaller proportion to their nestlings, but the total amount of foo

SUBMITTER: Sinkovics C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8683465 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature