Social cues facilitate habitat selection: American redstarts establish breeding territories in response to song.

Full Abstract

For migratory songbirds nesting in northern temperate forests, a short breeding season demands that males rapidly establish territories. Because critical insect and vegetation resources are unavailable during spring arrival, we suggest that conspecifics serve as settlement cues for males new to a local population. To test conspecific attraction, we conducted playback experiments with American redstarts Setophaga ruticilla. Experimental results demonstrate that song playbacks strongly attract conspecifics, recruiting an average of 4.2 additional males per plot; adult males new to our sites increased, while yearling males failed to respond. Yearlings arrived 6 to 10 days later than adults, raising the possibility that yearlings responded to songs of early arriving adults rather than to playbacks. Our work indicates that conspecific attraction is an important mechanism for breeding habitat selection in an established population of a migratory forest songbird, but the effect is moderated by age, reproductive experience and arrival timing.

Author information

Author/s: Hahn, Beth A (BA); Silverman, Emily D (ED);

Affiliation: School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. bahahn(-atsign-)umich.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Biology letters (Biol Lett), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Sep; vol 2 (issue 3) : pp 337-40

Dates: Created 2006/12/06; Completed 2007/01/12; Revised 2008/11/20;

PMID: 17148397, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article
(including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.