We found that diversionary feeding is a suitable impact based tool to reduce conflicts between recovering predators (pine marten) and endangered ground nesting birds (cappercaillie) in Scottish Forests.
Take-home: 🌲 As pine martens expand, spatial refuges for owls shrink. 🦉 Food availability remains the strongest driver of breeding success. ⚖️ Still early in the colonisation so as pine martens increase, we may see evidence of the alternative prey hypothesis to come but not just yet. ➡️ #BOUatEOU
Findings: 🟢 Owl nest failure was strongly controlled by vole abundance. 🟠 Pine marten occupancy also increased failure, but effects were additive, not interactive. ❌ No support for the Alternative Prey Hypothesis — marten effects didn’t increase when voles were low.
Key questions: ❓Does pine marten recolonisation increase owl nest failure? ❓Do voles buffer this risk (via APH)? ❓Is there evidence of spatial or temporal refugia from predation? We combined long-term nest records with pine marten occupancy data + artificial nest experiments.
My study system: 📍Kielder Forest, UK ⏳ 40 years of tawny owl breeding data 🦊 Return of predators: buzzards, goshawks, foxes, badgers & most recently pine martens 🌱 Voles = critical food resource for tawny owls, but also eaten by pine martens
Ecosystems are often unstable, but they can be stabilised by refugia — safe spaces in time or space where species can avoid predation. I also test the Alternative Prey Hypothesis (APH): when a preferred prey declines, predators switch to alternative prey. 👉 Could this explain owl breeding failure?
Check out my BlueSky talk at #BOUatEOU on rewilding Excited to share my research at #BOUatEOU on breeding failure of tawny owls (Strix aluco) in commercial plantations 🦉🌲 How do owls deal with changing food availability and the return of a new nest predator? #ornithology#predation#prey-switching
Presenting at #BOUatEOU 🦉 My talk explores tawny owl breeding success in Kielder Forest. With 40 years of data + field experiments, we find that food availability wins but pine marten colonisation is an emerging predictor of failure in owls. #predation#communityassembly#interactions
