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Contributed Talk

Session: : Ecosystem Function: Biodiversity 1

COS 102-4 - Global patterns of avian nest diversity

Tuesday, August 8, 2023
2:15 PM – 2:30 PM PDT
Location: D139
Abstract: Nest building is a crucial extended phenotype that allows birds to adapt to and breed in a variety of habitats. It is, thus, expected that the biogeographical distribution of nest traits should be closely associated with habitat characteristics. Many studies, however, have found inconclusive results to describe the association, partly because of taxonomically and geographically incomplete information on nest traits. By compiling and integrating the geographic distributions and nest traits of 8,842 bird species, we attempted to characterize the global pattern and examine the ecological drivers of nest diversity. For each 110-by-110-km terrestrial region, we measured the deviation of nest trait richness from the expected value based on the qualitative classifications of nest structure types, nesting sites and attachment approaches of all breeding birds within the region and those within the same zoogeographical region. We then built Spatial Durbin Error Models to examine the associations between the richness deviation and environmental variables reflecting climate, land cover, and available energy. Our results showed that the pattern of nest diversity is inconsistent with that of species diversity, suggesting that nest traits do not adhere to traditional models of latitudinal diversity gradients. Nest traits were more diverse than expected in the regions with high temperature and precipitation seasonalities, but exhibited lower diversity than expected in cold and dry areas. A positive relationship between the richness deviation of nest traits and available energy, determined by net primary productivity, implies that high available energy may allow species to have small niches and/or stimulate niche differentiation in nest traits among species. High land cover heterogeneity is also associated with a higher-than-expected functional diversity, suggesting that diverse land cover types can provide more breeding niches and thus lead to nest trait differentiation among species. In conclusion, we suggest that nest traits are a unique set of characteristics that do not adhere to the common biodiversity pattern and are driven by both climatic seasonality and landscape characteristics in the ecosystems.