Birds may use a variety of cues to select a nest site, including external information on habitat structure and nest site characteristics, or they may rely instead on social information obtained directly or indirectly from the actions of conspecifics. We used an experimental manipulation to determine the extent to which a California population of the wood duck (Aix sponsa) used social information gleaned from visual cues inside nest boxes that might indicate the quality or occupancy of that site. Over two nesting seasons, we manipulated the contents of newly installed boxes to simulate one of three states: (1) presence of wood duck eggs, indicating current use of a nest site; (2) presence of down and shell membranes, indicating a previously successful nest; and (3) control nests with fresh shavings indicating an unused box. In addition, we measured habitat characteristics of the area surrounding each box to assess the use of external, non-social information about each nest site. We found no evidence that females laid eggs preferentially, or that conspecific brood parasitism was more likely to occur, in any of the treatments. In contrast, nest site use and reproductive traits of wood ducks did vary with vegetation cover, and orientation and distance of the box from water. Our results suggest that personal information, not social information, influence initial nest site selection decisions when females are unfamiliar with a site. Social cues likely become increasingly important once nest sites develop their own history, and a population becomes well established.

中文翻译：

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北美野鸭（Aix sponsa）使用信息的实验测试：外部栖息地提示而不是社交视觉提示会影响最初的巢穴选择

鸟类可能会使用各种线索来选择巢穴，包括有关栖息地结构和巢穴特征的外部信息，或者它们可能会依赖于直接或间接地从物种的行为获得的社会信息。我们使用实验方法来确定加州野鸭（Aix sponsa）从巢箱内的视觉提示中收集的社交信息，这些信息可能表明该网站的质量或占用率。在两个筑巢季节中，我们操纵了新安装的盒子中的物品，以模拟以下三种状态之一：（1）存在木鸭蛋，表明当前使用了巢穴；（2）羽绒和壳膜的存在，表明先前成功筑巢；（3）控制巢中有新鲜的刨花，表示未使用的盒子。此外，我们测量了每个盒子周围区域的栖息地特征，以评估对每个巢穴位置的外部，非社会信息的使用。我们发现没有证据表明女性在任何一种治疗方法中都优先产卵，或者更有可能发生同种异卵繁殖。相反，木鸭的巢穴利用和繁殖性状确实随着植被的覆盖，盒子的方向和与水的距离而变化。我们的结果表明，当女性不熟悉某个地点时，个人信息（而不是社会信息）会影响最初的筑巢地点选择决定。一旦筑巢点发展了自己的历史，人口就已经建立起来了，社会暗示就可能变得越来越重要。