| Title: |
Ecology of the Southeastern American Kestrel |
| Authors: |
Brown, Jessica L. |
| Contributors: |
Collopy, Michael W.; Chandra, Sudeep; Jenkins, Stephen H.; Weisberg, Peter J.; Poulson, Simon R. |
| Publication Year: |
2018 |
| Collection: |
University of Nevada, Reno: ScholarWorks Repository |
| Subject Terms: |
American kestrel; Bayesian statistics; landscape ecology; life history; population dynamics |
| Description: |
Life history theory predicts that fitness will be maximized by balancing production of offspring with the parents' residual reproductive value. Whether this balance is achieved at the expense of parental or nestling condition is not clear for species with intermediate life-history characteristics, such as the southeastern American kestrel (Falco sparverius paulus). We provided food supplements to 61 nesting kestrel pairs that were matched with 63 control pairs in 2008 and 2009 in north-central Florida, USA. We analyzed between-year effects on reproductive decisions for the next year's first nest, such as timing of incubation, clutch size, and apparent nest success, along with annual adult female survival and nestling mass at time of fledging, with Bayesian hierarchical or capture-mark-recapture models. Treatment effects varied by year: in 2008, nestlings were similar in mass regardless of treatment, but food-supplemented adult females survived at very high rates. However, in 2009, food-supplemented nestlings were heavier than their control counterparts, and survival of supplemented adult females decreased. Weather and changes in nesting phenology, regardless of treatment groups, suggested that 2009 was more energetically demanding than 2008. We interpret the variable response of kestrels to our food supplement as evidence for a fixed investment in nestlings, such that in challenging years, adult females were unwilling to sacrifice their own condition for their nestlings.Reproduction is thought to be costly, leading to a hypothesized tradeoff between investment in a current reproductive attempt and investment in self-maintenance and future reproduction. The outcome of reproductive attempts is frequently assessed by short-term measurements of investment, such as number of offspring at time of independence or body condition of offspring; however, a more appropriate measure in the context of lifetime reproductive strategy is the eventual recruitment of offspring to the breeding population. We used Bayesian ... |
| Document Type: |
doctoral or postdoctoral thesis |
| File Description: |
PDF |
| Language: |
unknown |
| Relation: |
http://hdl.handle.net/11714/3822 |
| Availability: |
http://hdl.handle.net/11714/3822 |
| Rights: |
In Copyright(All Rights Reserved) ; Author(s) |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.99F4D98B |
| Database: |
BASE |