Explore the vast range of titles available.

Selection of a nest site can be viewed as an adaptive trade-off between the cost of searching and defending the site and the reproductive benefits of selecting a site enhancing reproductive success super(1,2). Differential resource selection is also one of the major factors allowing the coexistence of species super(3,4). However, when a species has a specific nesting requirement, suitable nesting locations may be difficult to obtain super(5,6), which may cause the overlap of nesting sites super(7).

Human-induced rapid environmental change (HIREC) has altered landscape processes and negatively impacted many species globally. Some of the most dramatic changes have been in wetlands where flows have been disrupted, and new wetlands have been created to retain runoff. In response to disrupted natural wetland conditions, Wood Stork ( Mycteria americana ) populations in South Florida have significantly declined over the past several decades. Despite the well-documented sensitivity of Wood Storks to natural wetland conditions, Wood Storks are often observed foraging in roadside created wetlands; however, the availability of prey in created wetlands is currently unknown. We sampled natural and created wetlands to determine aquatic fauna available for foraging Wood Storks. To determine prey use, we collected food boluses from Wood Storks in both natural wetland and urban landscapes. Historical studies found nonnative fish were absent in Wood Stork diet prior to the dominance of created wetlands in the landscape; however, we found nonnative fish frequently in both created wetlands and boluses. Furthermore, urban nesting Wood Storks consumed large-bodied prey species that were more characteristic of created wetlands whereas Wood Storks nesting in natural wetlands consumed large-bodied prey more characteristic of natural wetlands. Overall, Wood Storks consumed prey that were more similar to the fish community in created wetlands than those in natural wetlands. These dietary patterns suggest that Wood Storks have behavioral plasticity in both foraging habitat and prey use to cope with HIREC. Conservation efforts for species existing in both natural and urban habitats should consider the importance of novel prey and foraging habitats, as they may assist in sustaining populations in a rapidly changing world.

There is a strong conservation need to understand traits of species that adapt to urban environments, but results have been equivocal. Wetland birds exhibit a strong phylogenetic signal towards urban tolerance; however, they have largely been ignored in urban studies. In their historic ranges, wetland birds inhabit dynamic systems, traveling long distances to locate food. This ability to exploit dynamic resources may translate to success in urban environments, areas characterized by novel food opportunities. We used the Wood Stork ( Mycteria americana ), a species of conservation concern, to determine if the ability to exploit resources in natural environments translated to exploitation of urban resources. During optimal natural foraging conditions, storks nesting in both urban and natural wetlands had narrow diet breadths and high productivity. However, during suboptimal conditions, urban stork diet expanded to include anthropogenic items, leading to increased productivity. Our study provides a mechanistic understanding of how a wetland species persists, and even thrives, in urban environments. We demonstrated that species inhabiting dynamic systems can exploit urban areas resulting in increased reproductive performance during suboptimal conditions. Together, urban environments may support biodiversity in a variety of ways, but species-specific mechanistic understanding will help highlight how to best mitigate potential threats of urbanization.

Vigilance in animals, crucial for predator detection, impacts survival and reproduction by diverting time from activities like foraging and mating. Painted Stork (Mycteria leucocephala) , a colonially nesting bird, experiences disturbances from avian predators and human presence while nesting in colonies across varied habitats in India. We measured environmental vigilance behaviour at two diverse types of nesting sites in North India, the National Zoological Park and Keoladeo National Park. We studied the study role of several variables viz. sex, nestling age, number of neighbours, number of visitors, and other variables on vigilance, by camera techniques. Our findings revealed significant sex-based differences, with males being more vigilant than females, likely due to their roles in territoriality, mate guarding, and nest protection. Parental vigilance increased as nestlings aged, underscoring its importance as parental investment. Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) indicated that number of visitors, number of neighbours, and other habitat variables significantly affected vigilance behaviour. Painted Storks at the National Zoological Park displayed higher vigilance than Storks in Keoladeo National Park, attributed to site specific variables.

Local extinction of milky stork Mycteria cinerea has been reported from the wild of Thailand. Only one captive population exists at Nakhon Ratchasima Zoo and is currently maintained as a breeding stock of the country. To initiate future reintroduction program, determination of genetic diversity in this captive population is crucial for its long-term sustainability in nature. The present study employed a combination of maternally inherited mitochondrial control region and biparentally inherited nuclear microsatellite markers to evaluate genetic status of these captive individuals. Phylogenetic analysis and haplotype network construction demonstrated moderate haplotype diversity ( h  = 0.560 ± 0.050) and low nucleotide polymorphism (π = 0.0007 ± 0.0001). Multilocus microsatellite examination further showed low heterozygosity ( H O = 0.387; H E = 0.374) with no significant evidence of inbreeding ( F IS = -0.036). Moreover, STRUCTURE computation revealed two distinct genetic clusters among all studied individuals. Cluster 1 carried all three identified haplotypes and exhibited relatively higher genetic diversity than the cluster 2. Significant inbreeding was not observed in these two clusters. Assessment of pairwise relatedness additionally indicated that a majority of sample pairs were not genealogically related, thereby providing potential candidates for future breeding. Finally, suitable stork individuals and criteria for the effective selection of breeding pairs are proposed. Our research not only reports comprehensive genetic data of the sole remaining population of Thai milky stork for the first time, but also proposes a practical strategic framework by utilizing the obtained genetic information along with judicious breeding selection for recovering this endangered species of Thailand.

Species distribution models (SDM) link species occurrence with a suite of environmental predictors and provide an estimate of habitat quality when the variable set captures the biological requirements of the species. SDMs are inherently more complex when they include components of a species' ecology such as conspecific attraction and behavioral flexibility to exploit resources that vary across time and space. Wading birds are highly mobile, demonstrate flexible habitat selection, and respond quickly to changes in habitat quality; thus serving as important indicator species for wetland systems. We developed a spatio-temporal, multi-SDM framework using Great Egret (Ardea alba), White Ibis (Eudocimus albus), and Wood Stork (Mycteria Americana) distributions over a decadal gradient of environmental conditions to predict species-specific abundance across space and locations used on the landscape over time. In models of temporal dynamics, species demonstrated conditional preferences for resources based on resource levels linked to differing temporal scales. Wading bird abundance was highest when prey production from optimal periods of inundation was concentrated in shallow depths. Similar responses were observed in models predicting locations used over time, accounting for spatial autocorrelation. Species clustered in response to differing habitat conditions, indicating that social attraction can co-vary with foraging strategy, water-level changes, and habitat quality. This modeling framework can be applied to evaluate the multi-annual resource pulses occurring in real-time, climate change scenarios, or restorative hydrological regimes by tracking changing seasonal and annual distribution and abundance of high quality foraging patches.

Brazilian natural landscapes are recognized as maintaining high biodiversity. Moreover, anthropogenic ecosystems can also contribute to society achieving sustainable development objectives, promoting the sustainable use of ecosystems and halting biodiversity loss. In this context, we analyzed the presence of bird species in six rural environments to support dialogue on environmental conservation and rural tourism. We observed 127 species, of which, 46 species were recorded in both open and forested environments. The greatest species richness was verified in the environments of Open/Agricultural (69 species) and Forest/Riparian (57 species). Species residing in the Rio Grande do Sul and summer residents predominated over summer visiting (such as Mycteria americana and Petrochelidon pyrrhonota ). Xanthopsar flavus , considered threatened with extinction for Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and globally by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), was observed on a single occasion in the Open/Agricultural environment. In ordering the environments, forests differed from open environments, partially due to food sources (diets), the presence of isolated trees (perches), and places for shelter and breeding. Our results suggest that maintaining heterogeneous habitats on rural areas supports a high richness of bird species, contributing to bird biodiversity in agricultural environments. This diversity of birds may be part of environmental education actions and provide cultural ecosystem services, especially bird watching associated with rural ecotourism.

Background Recursive movement patterns have been used to detect behavioral structure within individual movement trajectories in the context of foraging ecology, home-ranging behavior, and predator avoidance. Some animals exhibit movement recursions to locations that are tied to reproductive functions, including nests and dens; while existing literature recognizes that, no method is currently available to explicitly target different types of revisited locations. Moreover, the temporal persistence of recursive movements to a breeding location can carry information regarding the fate of breeding attempts, but it has never been used as a metric to quantify recursive movement patterns. Here, we introduce a method to locate breeding attempts and estimate their fate from GPS-tracking data of central place foragers. We tested the performance of our method in three bird species differing in breeding ecology (wood stork ( Mycteria americana), lesser kestrel ( Falco naumanni ) , Mediterranean gull ( Ichthyaetus melanocephalus )) and implemented it in the R package ‘nestR’. Methods We identified breeding sites based on the analysis of recursive movements within individual tracks. Using trajectories with known breeding attempts, we estimated a set of species-specific criteria for the identification of nest sites, which we further validated using non-reproductive individuals as controls. We then estimated individual nest survival as a binary measure of reproductive fate (success, corresponding to fledging of at least one chick, or failure) from nest-site revisitation histories during breeding attempts, using a Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach that accounted for temporally variable revisitation patterns, probability of visit detection, and missing data. Results Across the three species, positive predictive value of the nest-site detection algorithm varied between 87 and 100% and sensitivity between 88 and 92%, and we correctly estimated the fate of 86–100% breeding attempts. Conclusions By providing a method to formally distinguish among revisited locations that serve different ecological functions and introducing a probabilistic framework to quantify temporal persistence of movement recursions, we demonstrated how the analysis of recursive movement patterns can be applied to estimate reproduction in central place foragers. Beyond avian species, the principles of our method can be applied to other central place foraging breeders such as denning mammals. Our method estimates a component of individual fitness from movement data and will help bridge the gap between movement behavior, environmental factors, and their fitness consequences.

Although molecular information for the wood stork (Mycteria americana) has been well described, data concerning their karyotypical organization and phylogenetic relationships with other storks are still scarce. Thus, we aimed to analyze the chromosomal organization and diversification of M. americana, and provide evolutionary insights based on phylogenetic data of Ciconiidae. For this, we applied both classical and molecular cytogenetic techniques to define the pattern of distribution of heterochromatic blocks and their chromosomal homology with Gallus gallus (GGA). Maximum likelihood analyses and Bayesian inferences (680 bp COI and 1007 bp Cytb genes) were used to determine their phylogenetic relationship with other storks. The results confirmed 2n = 72, and the heterochromatin distribution pattern was restricted to centromeric regions of the chromosomes. FISH experiments identified fusion and fission events involving chromosomes homologous to GGA macrochromosome pairs, some of which were previously found in other species of Ciconiidae, possibly corresponding to synapomorphies for the group. Phylogenetic analyses resulted in a tree that recovered only Ciconinii as a monophyletic group, while Mycteriini and Leptoptlini tribes were configured as paraphyletic clades. In addition, the association between phylogenetic and cytogenetic data corroborates the hypothesis of a reduction in the diploid number throughout the evolution of Ciconiidae.

Fluctuations in size and turnover of centralized, aggregative breeding locations are attributable to both natural and anthropogenic causes, and distinguishing between these sources is critical for successful conservation and management of colonially breeding animals. We used a 40-year data set to examine the relative importance of colony variables to colony dynamics of endangered Wood Storks ( Mycteria americana ) within the United States. Larger colonies were less prone to abandonment and those of greater longevity were more likely to re-colonize, suggesting size and previous history have intrinsic value to Wood Storks. Colonies with a higher degree of physical connection to the mainland were more likely to be abandoned, probably because the isolation reduces access for mammalian nest predators. Proximity to human activity was positively related to the probability of re-colonization, indicating either that Wood Storks and humans are attracted to similar ecological features, or that there may be some positive benefit from nesting near human activities. Local rainfall in the 12 months prior to nest initiation was positively related to re-colonization rates and negatively related to extinction rates, suggesting that colony-site effects on persistence are mediated by annual weather patterns. Our findings present means to prioritize conservation efforts for colonial nesting waterbirds.