Massive nest-box supplementation boosts fecundity, survival and even immigration without altering mating and reproductive behaviour in a rapidly recovered bird population.

ABSTRACT: Habitat restoration measures may result in artificially high breeding density, for instance when nest-boxes saturate the environment, which can negatively impact species' demography. Potential risks include changes in mating and reproductive behaviour such as increased extra-pair paternity, conspecific brood parasitism, and polygyny. Under particular cicumstances, these mechanisms may disrupt reproduction, with populations dragged into an extinction vortex. With the use of nuclear microsatellite markers, we investigated the occurrence of these potentially negative effects in a recovered population of a rare secondary cavity-nesting farmland bird of Central Europe, the hoopoe (Upupa epops). High intensity farming in the study area has resulted in a total eradication of cavity trees, deprivi

SUBMITTER: Berthier K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3335799 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature