British Birds (british + bird)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Dispersal and the interspecific abundance-occupancy relationship in British birds

GLOBAL ECOLOGY, Issue 5 2003
Kevin J. Gaston
ABSTRACT Aim To test the prediction that deviations of species from the positive interspecific relationship between abundance and occupancy (a measure of geographical range size) are related to differences in dispersal. Location Great Britain. Methods Quantitative data on the abundances, occupancy and dispersal distances of British birds are compared using phylogenetic comparative methods. Results Measures of natal and adult dispersal distance, and the intraspecific variance in these parameters, explain little variation in occupancy in addition to that accounted for by population size. Individual dispersal variables failed to explain significant variance when added individually to a model with population size as a predictor. Migrants and species using wet habitats tend to disperse further than residents and dry habitat species. Analysing these four groups separately revealed effects of dispersal only on the occupancy attained by dry habitat species. Conclusions The only consistent predictor of occupancy in these analyses was population size. [source]


Taxonomic recommendations for British birds: Fourth report

IBIS, Issue 4 2007
GEORGE SANGSTER
First page of article [source]


Large-scale dynamics in colonization and extinction for breeding birds in Britain

JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY, Issue 3 2002
Kevin J. Gaston
Summary 1A number of generalizations have been made as to the effects of the area of occupancy, population size, dispersal ability and body size of species on their relative rates of local colonization and extinction. 2Here, data on the breeding bird assemblage of Britain are used to test these generalizations. The complete geographical ranges of British birds have been censused twice, in the periods 1968,72 and 1988,91, allowing rates of colonization and extinction between these periods to be estimated. 3The local colonization dynamics of species are influenced independently by their range sizes and the dispersal abilities of adult birds: species with smaller range sizes and larger dispersal distances were more likely to have colonized new areas between the two census periods. 4The local extinction dynamics of species are influenced independently by their population sizes and body masses: species with smaller population sizes and body sizes were more likely to have gone extinct from areas inhabited in the first census period. 5These results remain when controlling for the effects of phylogenetic relatedness. 6These analyses uphold many commonly held generalizations about the correlates of local colonization and extinction, and suggest that the long-term evolutionary history of these bird species has influenced their potential to respond to current ecological conditions. [source]