Responses to novelty in wild insular birds: comparing breeding populations in ecologically contrasting habitats.

ABSTRACT: Islands have always provided ideal natural laboratories for assessing ecological parameters influencing behaviour. One hypothesis that lends itself well to testing in island habitats suggests that animals frequenting highly variable environments should be motivated to approach and interact with (i.e. explore) novelty. Intra-species comparisons of populations living in ecologically different island habitats may, thus, help reveal the factors that modulate animals' responses to novelty. In this study, we presented novel objects to two geographically isolated breeding populations of the black-faced sheathbill (Chionis minor), a sedentary land-based bird that frequents remote sub-Antarctic islands. In the first population (Chionis minor ssp. crozettensis), the "Crozet group" (Baie du Marin, Il

SUBMITTER: Danel S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10907422 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature