To eat and not be eaten: diurnal mass gain and foraging strategies in wintering great tits.

ABSTRACT: Adaptive theory predicts that the fundamental trade-off between starvation and predation risk shapes diurnal patterns in foraging activity and mass gain in wintering passerine birds. Foragers mitigating both types of risk should exhibit a bimodal distribution (increased foraging and mass gain early and late in the day), whereas both foraging and mass gains early (versus late) during the day are expected when the risk of starvation (versus predation) is greatest. Finally, relatively constant rates of foraging and mass gain should occur when the starvation-predation risk trade-off is independent of body mass. Using automated feeders with integrated digital balances, we estimated diurnal patterns in foraging and body mass gain to test which ecological scenario was best supported in wintering

SUBMITTER: Moiron M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5879632 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature