Abstract
Many studies have investigated how spring temperature affects laying dates and how this in turn affects the synchrony between nestling food demands and the insect food peak that follows tree budburst. While there is strong evidence that temperature itself acts as a cue for this plasticity in annual timing, the exact nature of the cue and response remains to be elucidated. Here we use long-term data on Great and Blue Tits and an unprecedented dataset on the location and phenology of 1396 trees to investigate whether small-scale variation in laying date can be explained by local tree phenology, and/or by tree species composition around nestboxes. Individual trees maintained their relative timing of budburst between years, while differences among tree species were more variable between springs. Contrary to expectation, we found no relation between first-egg dates and average budburst date at different distances around the nestbox. This can at least partly be explained by the very low degree of spatial autocorrelation in tree budburst. We did find an effect of local tree composition whereby Blue Tits, but not Great Tits, laid earlier in nestboxes surrounded by more oaks and fewer beeches. Although Blue Tit nest failure rate was higher in territories with more beech trees, independently of laying date, we found no evidence for preferential occupation of oak-dominated territories. Thus although we found some evidence for fine-scale effects of tree species on timing of breeding, the underlying mechanism remains unclear.
Zusammenfassung
Die Legedaten von Blau- und Kohlmeisen variieren mit feinen Veränderungen in der örtlichen Baumartenzusammensetzung, nicht aber mit dem Ausbruch der Baumknospen.
Es gibt viele Untersuchungen dazu, wie sich die Frühlingstemperatur auf den Eiablagezeitpunkt auswirkt und wie dies wiederum den zeitlichen Abgleich zwischen dem Nahrungsbedarf der Nestlinge und dem starken Anstieg an Insekten direkt nach dem Austreiben der Bäume beeinflusst. Während es starke Hinweise darauf gibt, dass die Temperatur selbst als Auslöser für diese Plastizität im jährlichen Timing wirkt, muss die genaue Natur des Auslösers und der Reaktion darauf noch aufgeklärt werden. In unserer Studie verwendeten wir Langzeit-Daten von Kohlmeisen und Blaumeisen sowie einen bislang noch nicht ausgewerteten Datensatz über den Standort und die Phänologie von 1396 Bäumen, um zu untersuchen, ob kleinere Variationen des Legedatums durch die örtliche Baumphänologie und/oder die Baumartenzusammensetzung in der Umgebung von Nistkästen erklärt werden können. Einzelne Bäume behielten ihren relativen Zeitpunkt des Knospenausbruchs zwischen den Jahren bei, während die Unterschiede zwischen den Baumarten von Frühjahr zu Frühjahr variabler waren. Entgegen unserer Erwartung fanden wir keinen Zusammenhang zwischen dem Datum des ersten Eis und dem durchschnittlichen Zeitpunkt des Austriebs in verschiedenen Entfernungen um den Nistkasten. Dies kann zumindest teilweise durch den sehr geringen Grad an räumlicher Autokorrelation im Baumknospenaufbruch erklärt werden. Wir fanden einen Effekt der örtlichen Baumzusammensetzung, wobei Blaumeisen, aber nicht Kohlmeisen, in Nistkästen, die von mehr Eichen und weniger Buchen umgeben waren, ihre Eier früher legten. Obwohl die Ausfallrate von Blaumeisen-Nestern in Territorien mit mehr Buchen unabhängig vom Legedatum höher war, fanden wir keinen Hinweis auf eine Bevorzugung von an Eichen reichen Territorien. Obwohl wir also einige Hinweise auf feine Effekte der Baumarten auf den Brut-Zeitpunkt gefunden haben, bleibt der zugrundeliegende Mechanismus unklar.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to numerous students and field assistents that contributed to the data collection, with special thanks to Diederik De Bruyn, Frans Fierens and Joris Elst. Marc Esprit and Stefaan Goessens (INBO) produced the detailed tree positioning map of the research site, that allowed us to carry out the spatial analysis. Funding was provided by a sabbatical leave grant of the University of Antwerp (BOF) awarded to EM.
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EM and FA conceived the study. FA provided the long-term bird data. FA, PVK and KV provided tree data. EM performed all analyses and wrote the manuscript. All authors provided input on the interpretation of the results and on the draft manuscript.
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Matthysen, E., Adriaensen, F., Van de Kerckhove, P. et al. Great and blue tit laying dates vary with fine-scale variation in local tree composition but not tree budburst. J Ornithol 162, 709–722 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-021-01872-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-021-01872-2