Article
Behavioral Sciences
Eva Serrano-Davies, Nina Bircher, Bernice Sepers, Kees van Oers
Summary: Habitat characteristics during rearing are associated with behavioral phenotypes. This study explores how rearing habitat characteristics relate to exploratory behavior, food selection, and foraging performance during winter in wild great tits. The results show that faster explorers are raised in lower quality habitats and visit feeders more frequently. Additionally, the rearing environment influences diet selection during winter. This study highlights the importance of habitat characteristics in shaping behavior.
BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Ji-Won Kang, Jong-Koo Lee
Summary: This study aimed to determine if the brood reduction hypothesis could explain asynchronous hatching in passerines. Infrared cameras were used to observe the nest boxes of great tits, and it was found that there was no significant difference in feeding between hatchlings of different orders. Additionally, no selective distribution of food to older nestlings was observed over time. Therefore, alternative hypotheses should be explored to explain the asynchronous hatching in passerines.
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Qianxi Fan, E. Mingju, Yusheng Wei, Wei Sun, Haitao Wang
Summary: Female great tits engaging in double breeding choose mates with both genetic compatibility and good genes, preferring males with large breast stripes, high heterozygosity, and lower relatedness. The genetic quality of offspring from double-breeding pairs is higher than that of those from single-breeding pairs.
Article
Microbiology
Evy Goossens, Roschong Boonyarittichaikij, Daan Dekeukeleire, Lionel Hertzog, Sarah Van Praet, Frank Pasmans, Dries Bonte, Kris Verheyen, Luc Lens, An Martel, Elin Verbrugghe
Summary: This study investigates the impact of forest structure on the gut microbiome of wild great tit nestlings. The results show an interaction effect of edge density with tree species richness or composition on the microbial richness and community structure. There is no significant short-term impact of the overall fecal microbiome on host characteristics, but specific bacterial genera have adverse effects on fledging success.
FRONTIERS IN MICROBIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Ornithology
Juli Broggi, Hannah Watson, Johan Nilsson, Jan-Ake Nilsson
Summary: In a study conducted in southern Sweden, we found that winter supplementary feeding had a positive effect on the breeding performance of wild great tits. The study showed that birds breeding in the supplemented area had larger clutch sizes compared to birds in the control area, although the laying date was not affected. The results suggest a carry-over effect of winter feeding on subsequent breeding performance.
JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Sydney F. Hope, William A. Hopkins, Frederic Angelier
Summary: With 68% of the world's population expected to live in cities by 2050, it is crucial to understand how animals respond to urbanization. This study examines the effects of urbanization on parental care and incubation behavior in great tits. The results show that urban females spent more time incubating, had shorter off-bouts, and ended their last daily off-bouts at a later hour compared to forest females. However, there were no significant differences in egg temperatures or fitness-related offspring variables between urban and forest populations.
Article
Biology
Sepand Riyahi, Jose G. Carrillo-Ortiz, Francesc Uribe, Francesc Calafell, Juan Carlos Senar
Summary: The SNP290 polymorphism of the SERT gene is strongly associated with risk-taking behaviors in great tits. Birds with the CT genotype exhibit faster response to the flag, higher distress calling rate, and fewer hissing calls compared to birds with the CC genotype. Hissing behavior should be considered as fear-induced shy behavior.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Agriculture, Multidisciplinary
Jean-Charles Bouvier, Thomas Delattre, Thomas Boivin, Raphael Musseau, Cecile Thomas, Claire Lavigne
Summary: This study examined the foraging behavior of great tits in conventional and organic apple orchards using radiotracking techniques and found that organic orchards were more suitable for foraging. Additionally, conventional orchard management was associated with lower nestling survival and fledgling number.
AGRICULTURE ECOSYSTEMS & ENVIRONMENT
(2022)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Erno Vincze, Veronika Bokony, Laszlo Zsolt Garamszegi, Gabor Seress, Ivett Pipoly, Csenge Sinkovics, Krisztina Sandor, Andras Liker
Summary: Urban female great tits show bolder behavior by staying on the nest more frequently and producing alarm calls more often than those in forest habitats. However, consistency and plasticity of risk-taking behavior do not differ between urban and forest populations across various temporal scales.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Thomas Crouchet, Philipp Heeb, Alexis S. Chaine
Summary: Foraging decisions are influenced by predation risk and individual characteristics, and can have important implications for population dynamics.
BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Katerina Sam, Eliska Kovarova, Inga Freiberga, Henriette Uthe, Alexander Weinhold, Leonardo R. Jorge, Rachakonda Sreekar
Summary: The research demonstrates that great tits can learn to identify herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs) as an indicator of food reward, rather than it being an innate ability. They are able to associate HIPVs with food reward through learning, but are not capable of generalizing this ability among different tree species.
ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Csenge Sinkovics, Gabor Seress, Ivett Pipoly, Erno Vincze, Andras Liker
Summary: The study found that the scarcity of high-quality food in cities may lead to poor reproductive performance in urban birds, and although urban great tit parents can provide the same quantity of food per nestling as forest parents in some ways, they still cannot fully compensate for the lack of caterpillars in poor years.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Ambre Salis, Jean-Paul Lena, Thierry Lengagne
Summary: Birds use specific mobbing calls when attacking predators, containing introductory and approach-triggering notes. European great tits responded appropriately to mobbing calls of black-capped chickadees, indicating potential semantic compositionality in Parids.
Article
Evolutionary Biology
Esperanza S. Ferrer, Francesc Uribe, Juan Jose Sanz, Joan Carles Senar
Summary: The study found that in male great tits, the size of the black tie correlated with singing abilities and song characteristics, but did not correlate with the hue and chroma of the yellow breast coloration.
BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY
(2021)
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Izabella Rzad, Anna Okulewicz, Ruslan Salamatin, Magdalena Szenejko, Remigiusz Panicz, Jaroslaw K. Nowakowski, Agata Stapf
Summary: This study aimed to describe and compare the helminth communities of Eurasian blue tit and Great tit during their autumn migration to their wintering grounds on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. The research found several parasite species that were previously unrecorded in these bird species in Poland, with the digenetic fluke and filarial nematodes being dominant. The study provides new knowledge about the transmission of helminths in Central Europe.
