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Courtois È, Garant D, Pelletier F, Bélisle M. Nonideal nest box selection by tree swallows breeding in farmlands: Evidence for an ecological trap? Ecol Evol 2021; 11:16296-16313. [PMID: 34824828 PMCID: PMC8601888 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.8323] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/12/2021] [Revised: 10/04/2021] [Accepted: 10/12/2021] [Indexed: 01/21/2023] Open
Abstract
Animals are expected to select a breeding habitat using cues that should reflect, directly or not, the fitness outcome of the different habitat options. However, human-induced environmental changes can alter the relationships between habitat characteristics and their fitness consequences, leading to maladaptive habitat choices. The most severe case of such nonideal habitat selection is the ecological trap, which occurs when individuals prefer to settle in poor-quality habitats while better ones are available. Here, we studied the adaptiveness of nest box selection in a tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) population breeding over a 10-year period in a network of 400 nest boxes distributed along a gradient of agricultural intensification in southern Québec, Canada. We first examined the effects of multiple environmental and social habitat characteristics on nest box preference to identify potential settlement cues. We then assessed the links between those cues and habitat quality as defined by the reproductive performance of individuals that settled early or late in nest boxes. We found that tree swallows preferred nesting in open habitats with high cover of perennial forage crops, high spring insect biomass, and high density of house sparrows (Passer domesticus), their main competitors for nest sites. They also preferred nesting where the density of breeders and their mean number of fledglings during the previous year were high. However, we detected mismatches between preference and habitat quality for several environmental variables. The density of competitors and conspecific social information showed severe mismatches, as their relationships to preference and breeding success went in opposite direction under certain circumstances. Spring food availability and agricultural landscape context, while related to preferences, were not related to breeding success. Overall, our study emphasizes the complexity of habitat selection behavior and provides evidence that multiple mechanisms may potentially lead to an ecological trap in farmlands.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ève Courtois
- Département de BiologieUniversité de SherbrookeSherbrookeQuebecCanada
| | - Dany Garant
- Département de BiologieUniversité de SherbrookeSherbrookeQuebecCanada
| | - Fanie Pelletier
- Département de BiologieUniversité de SherbrookeSherbrookeQuebecCanada
| | - Marc Bélisle
- Département de BiologieUniversité de SherbrookeSherbrookeQuebecCanada
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Poisson MC, Garrett DR, Sigouin A, Bélisle M, Garant D, Haroune L, Bellenger JP, Pelletier F. Assessing pesticides exposure effects on the reproductive performance of a declining aerial insectivore. ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS : A PUBLICATION OF THE ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2021; 31:e02415. [PMID: 34278650 DOI: 10.1002/eap.2415] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2020] [Revised: 04/08/2021] [Accepted: 05/14/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
In the context of increasing global environmental changes, it has become progressively important to understand the effects of human activity on wildlife populations. Declines in several avian populations have been observed since the 1970s, especially with respect to many farmland and grassland birds, which also include some aerial insectivores. Changes in farming practices referred to as agricultural intensification coincide with these major avian declines. Among those practices, increased pesticide use is hypothesized to be a key driver of avian population declines as it can lead to both toxicological and trophic effects. While numerous laboratory studies report that birds experience acute and chronic effects upon consuming pesticide treated food, little is known about the effects of the exposure to multiple pesticides on wildlife in natural settings. We monitored the breeding activities of Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) on 40 farms distributed over a gradient of agricultural intensification in southern Québec, Canada, to evaluate the presence of pesticides in their diet and quantify the exposure effects of those compounds on their reproductive performance between 2013 and 2018. We first assessed the presence of 54 active agents (or derivatives) found in pesticides in 2,081 food boluses (insects) delivered to nestlings by parents and documented their spatial distribution within our study area. Second, we assessed the effect of pesticide exposure through food (number of active agents detected and number of contaminated boluses on a given farm for a given year, while controlling for sampling effort) on clutch size as well as hatching and fledging successes and nestling's mass upon fledging. Pesticides were ubiquitous in our study system and nearly half (46%) of food boluses were contaminated by at least one active agent. Yet we found no relationship between our proxies of food contamination by pesticides and Tree Swallow reproductive performance. More studies are needed to better understand the putative role of pesticides in the decline of farmland birds and aerial insectivores as potential sublethal effects of pesticides can carry over to later life stages and impact fitness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marie-Christine Poisson
- Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500 boulevard de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Quebec, J1K 2R1, Canada
| | - Daniel R Garrett
- Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500 boulevard de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Quebec, J1K 2R1, Canada
| | - Audrey Sigouin
- Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500 boulevard de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Quebec, J1K 2R1, Canada
| | - Marc Bélisle
- Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500 boulevard de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Quebec, J1K 2R1, Canada
| | - Dany Garant
- Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500 boulevard de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Quebec, J1K 2R1, Canada
| | - Lounès Haroune
- Département de chimie, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500 boulevard de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Quebec, J1K 2R1, Canada
| | - Jean-Philippe Bellenger
- Département de chimie, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500 boulevard de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Quebec, J1K 2R1, Canada
| | - Fanie Pelletier
- Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500 boulevard de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Quebec, J1K 2R1, Canada
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Zhao Y, Liu Y, Scordato ESC, Lee M, Xing X, Pan X, Liu Y, Safran RJ, Pagani‐Núñez E. The impact of urbanization on body size of Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica gutturalis. Ecol Evol 2021; 11:612-625. [PMID: 33437455 PMCID: PMC7790637 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.7088] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/24/2020] [Revised: 11/02/2020] [Accepted: 11/13/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Urbanization implies a dramatic impact on ecosystems, which may lead to drastic phenotypic differences between urban and nonurban individuals. For instance, urbanization is associated with increased metabolic costs, which may constrain body size, but urbanization also leads to habitat fragmentation, which may favor increases in body mass when for instance it correlates with dispersal capacity. However, this apparent contradiction has rarely been studied. This is particularly evident in China where the urbanization process is currently occurring at an unprecedented scale. Moreover, no study has addressed this issue across large geographical areas encompassing locations in different climates. In this regard, Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) are a suitable model to study the impact of urbanization on wild animals because they are a widely distributed species tightly associated with humans. Here, we collected body mass and wing length data for 359 breeding individuals of Barn Swallow (H. r. gutturalis) from 128 sites showing different levels of urbanization around the whole China. Using a set of linear mixed-effects models, we assessed how urbanization and geography influenced body size measured using body mass, wing length, and their regression residuals. Interestingly, we found that the impact of urbanization was sex-dependent, negatively affecting males' body mass, its regression residuals, and females' wing length. We also found that northern and western individuals were larger, regarding both body mass and wing length, than southern and eastern individuals. Females were heavier than males, yet males had slightly longer wings than females. Overall, our results showed that body mass of males was particularly sensitive trait to urbanization, latitude, and longitude, while it only showed a weak response to latitude in females. Conversely, while wing length showed a similar geographical pattern, it was only affected by urbanization in the case of females. Further research is needed to determine whether these phenotypic differences are associated with negative effects of urbanization or potential selective advantages.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yanyan Zhao
- State Key Laboratory of BiocontrolSchool of Life Sciences/School of EcologySun Yat‐sen UniversityGuangzhouChina
| | - Yu Liu
- College of Life SciencesBeijing Normal UniversityBeijingChina
| | - Elizabeth S. C. Scordato
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of ColoradoBoulderCPUSA
- Biological Sciences DepartmentCalifornia State Polytechnic UniversityPomonaCAUSA
| | - Myung‐Bok Lee
- Guangdong Institute of Applied Biological ResourcesGuangzhouChina
| | - Xiaoying Xing
- College of Wildlife and Protected AreaNortheast Forestry UniversityHarbin, HeilongjiangChina
| | - Xinyuan Pan
- State Key Laboratory of BiocontrolSchool of Life Sciences/School of EcologySun Yat‐sen UniversityGuangzhouChina
| | - Yang Liu
- State Key Laboratory of BiocontrolSchool of Life Sciences/School of EcologySun Yat‐sen UniversityGuangzhouChina
| | - Rebecca J. Safran
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of ColoradoBoulderCPUSA
| | - Emilio Pagani‐Núñez
- Department of Health and Environmental SciencesXi’an Jiaotong‐Liverpool UniversitySuzhouChina
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Garant D. Natural and human-induced environmental changes and their effects on adaptive potential of wild animal populations. Evol Appl 2020; 13:1117-1127. [PMID: 32684950 PMCID: PMC7359845 DOI: 10.1111/eva.12928] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2019] [Revised: 01/23/2020] [Accepted: 01/24/2020] [Indexed: 12/26/2022] Open
Abstract
A major challenge of evolutionary ecology over the next decades is to understand and predict the consequences of the current rapid and important environmental changes on wild populations. Extinction risk of species is linked to populations' evolutionary potential and to their ability to express adaptive phenotypic plasticity. There is thus a vital need to quantify how selective pressures, quantitative genetics parameters, and phenotypic plasticity, for multiple traits in wild animal populations, may vary with changes in the environment. Here I review our previous research that integrated ecological and evolutionary theories with molecular ecology, quantitative genetics, and long-term monitoring of individually marked wild animals. Our results showed that assessing evolutionary and plastic changes over time and space, using multi-trait approaches, under a realistic range of environmental conditions are crucial steps toward improving our understanding of the evolution and adaptation of natural populations. Our current and future work focusses on assessing the limits of adaptive potential by determining the factors constraining the evolvability of plasticity, those generating covariation among genetic variance and selection, as well as indirect genetic effects, which can affect population's capacity to adjust to environmental changes. In doing so, we aim to provide an improved assessment of the spatial and temporal scale of evolutionary processes in wild animal populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dany Garant
- Département de biologieFaculté des SciencesUniversité de SherbrookeSherbrookeQCCanada
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Houle C, Pelletier F, Bélisle M, Garant D. Impacts of environmental heterogeneity on natural selection in a wild bird population*. Evolution 2020; 74:1142-1154. [DOI: 10.1111/evo.13939] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/07/2019] [Revised: 01/22/2020] [Accepted: 01/26/2020] [Indexed: 01/20/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Carolyne Houle
- Département de biologieUniversité de Sherbrooke 2500 boulevard de l'Université Sherbrooke Quebec Canada J1K 2R1
| | - Fanie Pelletier
- Département de biologieUniversité de Sherbrooke 2500 boulevard de l'Université Sherbrooke Quebec Canada J1K 2R1
| | - Marc Bélisle
- Département de biologieUniversité de Sherbrooke 2500 boulevard de l'Université Sherbrooke Quebec Canada J1K 2R1
| | - Dany Garant
- Département de biologieUniversité de Sherbrooke 2500 boulevard de l'Université Sherbrooke Quebec Canada J1K 2R1
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Gow EA, Knight SM, Bradley DW, Clark RG, Winkler DW, Bélisle M, Berzins LL, Blake T, Bridge ES, Burke L, Dawson RD, Dunn PO, Garant D, Holroyd G, Horn AG, Hussell DJT, Lansdorp O, Laughlin AJ, Leonard ML, Pelletier F, Shutler D, Siefferman L, Taylor CM, Trefry H, Vleck CM, Vleck D, Whittingham LA, Norris DR. Effects of Spring Migration Distance on Tree Swallow Reproductive Success Within and Among Flyways. Front Ecol Evol 2019. [DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2019.00380] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
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Gossieaux P, Leclerc M, Van de Walle J, Poisson Y, Toni P, Landes J, Bourret A, Garant D, Pelletier F, Bélisle M. Offspring mass variation in tree swallows: A case of bet‐hedging? Ecosphere 2019; 10:e02607. [PMID: 35865407 PMCID: PMC9286465 DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.2607] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2018] [Accepted: 12/17/2018] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
The evolution of reproductive strategies is affected by the ability of organisms to deal with future environmental conditions. When environments are temporally unpredictable, however, it is difficult to anticipate optimal offspring phenotype. Diversification of offspring phenotypes, a strategy called diversified bet‐hedging, may allow parents to maximize their fitness by reducing between‐year variation in reproductive success. The link between diversification of offspring phenotypes and individual reproductive success, however, has rarely been documented empirically. We used an eight‐year dataset (1215 broods, 870 females) on individually marked tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) to assess whether intra‐brood mass variation was compatible with a diversified bet‐hedging strategy. Intra‐brood mass variation was weakly, but significantly repeatable within females, suggesting consistent individual differences. Greater intra‐brood mass variation, however, was not associated with reduced between‐year variation in reproductive success or increased female reproductive success. Moreover, contrary to diversified bet‐hedging expectations, fledging success of large broods was greater when hatchlings had similar rather than variable masses. Our results suggest that intra‐brood mass variation may not result from diversified bet‐hedging, but rather from complex interactions between environmental, brood, and maternal characteristics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philippine Gossieaux
- Département de Biologie Université de Sherbrooke 2500 Boulevard de l'Université Sherbrooke Quebec J1K 2R1 Canada
| | - Martin Leclerc
- Département de Biologie Université de Sherbrooke 2500 Boulevard de l'Université Sherbrooke Quebec J1K 2R1 Canada
| | - Joanie Van de Walle
- Département de Biologie Université de Sherbrooke 2500 Boulevard de l'Université Sherbrooke Quebec J1K 2R1 Canada
| | - Yoanna Poisson
- Département de Biologie Université de Sherbrooke 2500 Boulevard de l'Université Sherbrooke Quebec J1K 2R1 Canada
| | - Pauline Toni
- Département de Biologie Université de Sherbrooke 2500 Boulevard de l'Université Sherbrooke Quebec J1K 2R1 Canada
| | - Julie Landes
- Département de Biologie Université de Sherbrooke 2500 Boulevard de l'Université Sherbrooke Quebec J1K 2R1 Canada
| | - Audrey Bourret
- Département de Biologie Université de Sherbrooke 2500 Boulevard de l'Université Sherbrooke Quebec J1K 2R1 Canada
| | - Dany Garant
- Département de Biologie Université de Sherbrooke 2500 Boulevard de l'Université Sherbrooke Quebec J1K 2R1 Canada
| | - Fanie Pelletier
- Département de Biologie Université de Sherbrooke 2500 Boulevard de l'Université Sherbrooke Quebec J1K 2R1 Canada
| | - Marc Bélisle
- Département de Biologie Université de Sherbrooke 2500 Boulevard de l'Université Sherbrooke Quebec J1K 2R1 Canada
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9
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Bourret A, Bélisle M, Pelletier F, Garant D. Multidimensional environmental influences on timing of breeding in a tree swallow population facing climate change. Evol Appl 2015; 8:933-44. [PMID: 26640519 PMCID: PMC4662344 DOI: 10.1111/eva.12315] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/17/2015] [Accepted: 08/08/2015] [Indexed: 01/13/2023] Open
Abstract
Most phenological traits are extremely sensitive to current climate change, and advances in the timing of important life-history events have been observed in many species. In birds, phenotypic plasticity in response to temperature is thought to be the main mechanism underlying yearly adjustment in the timing of breeding. However, other factors could be important and interact to affect the levels of plastic responses between and/or within-individuals. Here, we use long-term individual-based data on tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) to identify the spatial and environmental drivers affecting plasticity in laying date and to assess their importance at both population and individual levels. We found that laying date has advanced by 4.2 days over 10 years, and that it was mainly influenced by latitude and an interaction between spring temperature and breeder density. Analyses of individual plasticity showed that increases in temperature, but not in breeder density, resulted in within-individual advances in laying date. Our results suggest that females can adjust their laying date as a function of temperature, but that this adjustment will be partly constrained in habitats with lower breeder densities. Such potential constraint is especially worrying for the broad array of species already declining as a result of climate change.
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Affiliation(s)
- Audrey Bourret
- Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
| | - Marc Bélisle
- Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
| | - Fanie Pelletier
- Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
| | - Dany Garant
- Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
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