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Grasslands face continually increasing pressure from conversion to cropland, grazing, and urbanization, which severely affect their wildlife and ecosystemic services. Grassland birds are an important target for conservation initiatives due to their potential as indicator or flagship species. Their breeding success is mostly determined by nest predation rates, which are expected to be affected by landscape and nest-site characteristics, such as grass density and nest concealment, as well as by nest stage; higher activity during the nestling stage compared to the egg stage is more likely to attract predators. Effective management requires knowledge of the landscape and nest-site characteristics that affect predation rates and of the time when nests are most vulnerable. Nonetheless, many regions remain understudied, limiting the available information for land managers to promote bird nesting success. From 2017 to 2019, we studied nests of an assemblage of grassland ground-nesting passerines in the Flooding Pampa of Argentina. We used data on 277 nests of 6 species with similar nesting habits and evaluated models of nest daily survival rates to predation (DSRp) as a function of distance to habitat edges, nest-site characteristics, and nest stage on predation rates. The best supported model showed that DSRp was higher during the egg stage (laying and incubation) than during the nestling stage, with an interaction between stage and overhead visual concealment, meaning that DSRp increased with concealment only during the nestling stage. These results support the hypothesis that higher activity at the nests attracts more predators, and that most of the predation was likely by visually oriented predators, such as birds and some snakes, although further research on predator identity would be very useful. Interventions to improve nest success, such as predator exclosures, could be more efficient if placed during the nestling stage.

PhD Project - To lead or to follow: disentangling the genetic and cultural contributions to long-distance seabird migration at University of Liverpool, listed on FindAPhD.com

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With my colleague Christophe GUINET we offer a 6-months internship position for a master student about sexual selection in southern elephant seals 🦭. Check the attached file (in French) for more detai...