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Flexible habitat use in a migratory songbird expanding across a human-modified landscape: is it adaptive?

  • Behavioral ecology – original research
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Abstract

Behavioural plasticity during habitat selection plays a key role in determining whether organisms may thrive under human-induced rapid environmental changes. As organisms rely on environmental cues to make decisions, these behavioural responses may be maladaptive. We studied the European stonechat Saxicola torquatus as a model open-habitat bird species breeding in three structurally different land-use types generated by agriculture and forestry activities. In this mosaic landscape, we compared the relative attractiveness and the breeding habitat quality of intensive grassland, Christmas tree plantations and clear-cut patches in plantation forests to test whether habitat selection was adaptive. We examined the settlement pattern of territorial males to evaluate habitat preference. We recorded key parameters reflecting reproductive performances, adult and first-year survival to estimate the individual fitness of the birds and assess the quality of the different land-use types for breeding. Stonechats preferentially settled in clear-cut patches, but their fitness was not found to be markedly different in comparison with the other occupied habitats. Although they produced slightly lower-quality offspring in clear-cut patches, we did not find a negative consequence on first-year survival probabilities or any among-habitat differences in adult survival. With our analysis integrating multiple components of individual fitness, we show that all occupied land-use types are similarly rewarding for the breeding stonechats. Our study shows that some species can benefit from novel land-use types emerging in the landscape as a result of human activities. Flexible habitat selection in the stonechat has most probably contributed to its recent population increase in Western Europe.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all the volunteers and particularly to Paul Gailly who helped with the stonechat survey in the study area. Gilles San Martin provided advice for data analysis. We thank the landowners for access to private properties and the Département de la Nature et des Forêts for access to public forest sites. We also thank the two anonymous referees and the handling editor for their valuable comments on the manuscript. R Gailly was funded by the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research F.R.S.-FNRS through an FRIA PhD-grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

RG, JYP, NT and MD conceived and designed the experiments, RG conducted fieldwork, RG and LC analysed the data and wrote the manuscript, and JYP, NT and MD provided editorial advice.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robin Gailly.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All applicable institutional and/or national guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed. R. Gailly received a regional licence for stonechats capturing and ringing via the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (IRSNB-KBIN).

Additional information

Communicated by Thomas Koert Lameris.

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Supplementary file1 (PDF 388 kb)

Supplementary file2 (PDF 634 kb)

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Gailly, R., Cousseau, L., Paquet, JY. et al. Flexible habitat use in a migratory songbird expanding across a human-modified landscape: is it adaptive?. Oecologia 194, 75–86 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-020-04765-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-020-04765-y

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