The extent, frequency and ecological functions of food wasting by parrots.

ABSTRACT: Anecdotic citations of food wasting have been described for parrots, but we lack a comprehensive knowledge about the extent of this behaviour, and its ecological and evolutionary implications. Here, we combine experimental and observational approaches to evaluate the spatial, temporal, typological and taxonomic extent of food wasting by parrots, to identify the ecological and evolutionary factors driving food wasting, and to assess the incidence of two ecological functions derived from food wasting, such as food facilitation to other animal species and secondary seed dispersal. We found that food wasting is a widespread behaviour found in all the studied parrot species. However, the proportion of food wasted differed among species and throughout the year. Parrots wasted more food during th

SUBMITTER: Sebastian-Gonzalez E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6813306 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature