Ibis最新文献

Like many other fields, ornithology and birding are addressing their legacy of colonialism, including re-examining their naming practices. Discussions about eponyms, when species are named to honour people, sit at the intersection of nomenclatural stability and social justice concerns. In response to a charged debate about the future of eponymous common names, members of the American Ornithological Society (AOS)'s Diversity and Inclusion Committee held one-on-one listening sessions in 2020 with stakeholder groups across the birding and ornithology community and, in 2021, organized a Community Congress where stakeholders shared thoughts with a public audience. These two events aimed to create spaces for thoughtful dialogue around an inflamed topic and to identify areas of consensus for moving forward. Here we summarize the main findings from these two activities. We found broad agreement among stakeholders that (1) social justice is a valid reason to change names, (2) many issues – especially the technical, decision-making and public-engagement aspects of name changes – need to be considered, and (3) educational opportunities are not only abundant but critical in any name-change process to achieve the stated goals of increasing diversity and belonging in birding and ornithology. Our work highlights the importance of including many voices in conversations when proposed changes to public use systems, such as common names, appear to conflict with current decision-making methods. By creating a space away from knee-jerk reactions, our listening sessions and the Community Congress found that the scientists, birders, educators, data/wildlife managers and field guide authors we spoke with are willing to engage in crucial conversations of how to deal with eponymous common names, as part of engaging with ornithology's colonialist history.

Migrating animals are thought to be important spillover sources for novel pathogens. Haemosporidians (malaria-related parasites) are one such group of pathogens that commonly spillover into novel host communities if competent vectors are present. In birds, shorebirds (sandpipers, plovers and allies) perform some of the longest avian migrations, yet they are traditionally perceived as relatively free from haemosporidians. Although low prevalence fits several theories, such as effective immune responses or low exposure to vectors, few studies have been carried out in freshwater inland sites, where the vectors of haemosporidians (e.g. mosquitoes) are abundant, with a mixture of actively migrating (staging) and breeding hosts. Here we report the prevalence of three haemosporidian parasites, Haemoproteus, Leucocytozoon and Plasmodium, screened in 214 shorebirds from 15 species sampled in a freshwater marshland, southern Belarus. Contrary to most previous studies, we found that haemosporidians were frequent, with an overall prevalence in the community of 16.36%, including the locally breeding shorebirds (23.13%, 134 individuals of 10 species). However, actively migrating shorebirds had much lower prevalence (0.05%, 55 individuals of five species). We suggest that blood parasite infections are more common in shorebirds than currently acknowledged. Yet, actively migrating species may be free from haemosporidians or carry suppressed infections, leading to lower prevalence or even apparent absence in some species. Taken together, we theorize that a combination of sampling biases has driven our understanding of haemosporidian prevalence in shorebirds and future studies should take the migratory status of individuals into account when reporting prevalence. Furthermore, we argue that birds undergoing active migration may be less likely sources of spillover events than previously assumed.

As a child growing up deep in the Midwest of the United States, it was perhaps unlikely that young, tow-headed P. Dee Boersma dreamed of a lifetime spent in remote field locations in the southern hemisphere focusing her intensely inquisitive mind on black and white flightless avifauna. But, it's penguins (with some other species thrown in here and there for good measure) that have been what the still tow-headed Dr P. Dee Boersma has devoted her life to. And in their own way, the thousands – perhaps millions – of penguins that Dee has observed and collected data from over the last 50+ years, and indeed, all species of penguins on our globe, send a raucous thank you to her years of devotion to their cause. Dee's commitment to penguins has influenced policy of governments at multiple levels, contributed to the development and success of a suite of students under her tutelage, inspired countless field volunteers and other lay people to fight for all wild animals and places, and has left an indelible mark of how natural history field research is fundamental to the conservation of all species.

Having obtained a Bachelors of Science with Honours from Central Michigan University in 1969, Dee embarked on what can only be described as an incredible field adventure culminating in a PhD in Zoology from The Ohio State University. Her dissertation, entitled ‘The Galapagos Penguin: A Study of Adaptations for Life in an Unpredictable Environment’, was the result of multiple visits to those remote Galapagos Islands from 1970 to 1972, which at first found her camping alone at Pta. Espinosa, Fernandina, for weeks at a time, focusing her energy in beginning to understand why these amazing penguins so near to the equator continued to persist. Such a solo adventure would probably not be possible for a young scientist today, and indeed, her advisor insisted she take a field assistant on future visits. But, solo or otherwise, even at the start of her career, Dee Boersma was extraordinary, driven and intensely focused on her goals. Fifty+ years later, those traits persist.

With PhD in hand, in 1974 Dee migrated westward to the Pacific coast of the US and joined the Department of Zoology at the University of Washington, spending time in numerous departments and programmes across campus, and working her way to Professor of Zoology in 1988 (to be transferred to Professor of Biology in 1993). After a 10-year foray in the wilds of Alaska, with fork-tailed storm petrels the focus of her always intense passion for life in the field, Dee was asked to return to her roots and the penguins of the south, but this time in Argentina. With pressure from the world of international fashion's desire to use the leather of Magellanic penguins for golfing gloves, Dee was asked to initiate studies on the close cousins of her beloved Galapagos penguins, to provide scientific data to influence the Argentine government to not collect penguins for gloves. With her data contributing

Monitoring vulnerable species inhabiting mountain environments is crucial to track population trends and prioritize conservation efforts. However, the challenging nature of these remote areas poses difficulties in implementing effective and consistent monitoring programmes. To address these challenges, we examined the potential of passive acoustic monitoring of a cryptic high mountain bird species, the Rock Ptarmigan Lagopus muta. For 5 months in each of two consecutive years, we deployed 38 autonomous recording units in 10 areas of the Swiss Alps where the species is monitored by a national count monitoring programme. Once the recordings were collected, we built a machine-learning algorithm to automate call recognition. We focused on studying the species' daily and seasonal calling phenology and relating these to meteorological and climatic data. Rock Ptarmigans were vocally active from March to July, with a peak of activity occurring between mid-March and late April, 1 or 2 months earlier than the second half of May when the counts of the monitoring programme take place. The calling rate peaked at dawn before dropping rapidly until sunrise. Daily vocal activity demonstrated a consistent association with weather conditions and moon phase, whereas the timing of seasonal vocal activity varied with temperature and snow conditions. We found that the peak of vocal activity occurred when the snowpack was still thick and snow cover was close to 100% but with a local peak of high temperatures. Between our two study years, the peak of vocal activity occurred 30 days later in the colder year, suggesting phenological plasticity in relation to environmental conditions. Passive acoustic monitoring has the potential to complement conventional acoustic counts of cryptic birds by highlighting periods of higher detectability of individuals, and to survey small populations that often remain undetected during single visits. Moreover, our study supports the idea that passive acoustic monitoring can provide valuable data over large spatial and temporal scales, allowing decryption of hidden ecological patterns and assisting in conservation efforts.

Leaving the nest early to avoid detection by an approaching predator is an often-cited form of nest defence among ground-nesting birds, yet has rarely been quantitatively demonstrated. During the breeding season, we recorded Flight-initiation Distances (FIDs) of incubating, off-duty and non-breeding Hooded Plovers Thinornis cucuallatus cucuallatus in Victoria, Australia. Hooded Plovers exhibited longer FIDs when incubating compared with when off-duty or non-breeding birds (the latter two categories had similar FIDs). Our study supports the Leave Early to Avoid Detection (LEAD) hypothesis, and demonstrates that so-called ‘passive’ defence is in fact an active decision by the incubator to leave nests at distances which exceed those at which birds without nests or off-duty commence escape.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, populations of three species of Gyps vultures declined by more than 97% in South Asia in little more than a decade, caused by unintentional poisoning by the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) diclofenac. This led to a ban on the veterinary use of the drug, and establishment of conservation breeding programmes, throughout the region. Once much of Nepal had been confirmed as being free from diclofenac, beginning in 2017 White-rumped Vultures Gyps bengalensis were released from the captive breeding population. A total of 99 birds (n = 50 wild and n = 49 released) were fitted with GPS transmitters between 2017 and 2022 and monitored daily. Tag fixes suggesting death or ill-health were followed up and dead vultures were retrieved for post-mortem analysis. The estimated annual survival of wild adult vultures was 0.974 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.910–0.997), while that of wild subadults was 0.880 (95% CI 0.721–0.966). Survival rates of released birds were lower than those of wild birds, being 0.644 (95% CI 0.490–0.778) for adults and 0.758 (95% CI 0.579–0.887) for subadults. Post-mortem analysis of dead vultures indicated several possible causes of death, including predation, infection and electrocution. There was no evidence that any birds died of NSAID poisoning. The high survival rates of wild birds, especially adults, and the lack of evidence for NSAID-caused mortality, suggest that vulture habitat in the Nepal Vulture Safe Zone is free from diclofenac and that other hazards are sufficiently infrequent to allow the vulture population to recover. The lower survival of released birds compared with their wild counterparts suggests a need to improve the conservation breeding programme and release protocol.

A wide variety of attachment techniques have been used to track birds with electronic tags, with glue, tape, leg rings, neck collars and harnesses being the most common methods. In general, the choice of attachment method should strive to minimize tagging effects, but ensure that sufficient data are collected to address the research question at hand. The aim of our study was to develop and evaluate tag attachment methods to track Sandwich Terns Thalasseus sandvicensis during the last part of the incubation and the chick-rearing period of one breeding season. Tag attachments had to stay on for the duration of the chick-rearing period (5–6 weeks) and be non-restraining and flexible, but strong enough to withstand the forces and submersion associated with their plunge-diving foraging technique. We first experimentally tested the durability of flexible material under various environmental conditions with the aim of developing a self-releasing harness. Then, in field studies, we compared three different attachment methods on terns during the breeding seasons, attaching tags to dorsal feathers using (1) tape, (2) glue or (3) a newly developed harness made specifically for short-term deployments of one chick-rearing period and constructed from degradable material. Assessment of the performance of attachment methods was based on retention time of the loggers and on annual survival rates of tagged individuals in comparison with non-tagged individuals. The use of tape and glue led to premature loss of tags (median minimum retention time (range) of 3 (1–4) days and 15 (5–26) days, respectively), whereas the self-releasing harness had a median minimum retention time of 42 (18–91) days, which is sufficient to track Sandwich Terns during the entire chick-rearing period. The apparent annual survival of birds tagged using glue or tape did not differ from that observed in non-tagged control birds. In contrast, birds fitted with the self-releasing harnesses might have experienced a lower survival rate than control birds. Entanglement of birds in the harness material was incidentally observed in three cases, which may have contributed to the lower survival rates observed in this group. The risk of entanglement can potentially be mitigated with a leg-loop harness instead of a full-body harness. Our results highlight the necessity of careful consideration when selecting appropriate attachment methods. Specifically, there is a need to address whether the research questions and desired tracking duration justify the use of a harness and the higher impact that it entails, or whether a tape or glue-mount is sufficient. More broadly, sharing field expertise in tag attachments across studies is essential to successful deployments while minimizing the impact on animals.