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Behavioral Ecology Advance Access published online on July 21, 2004
Behavioral Ecology, doi:10.1093/beheco/arh139
© 2004 by International Society for Behavioral Ecology
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Received July 17, 2003
Revised May 26, 2004
Accepted June 1, 2004

Article

Common waxbills use carnivore scat to reduce the risk of nest predation

Justin G. Schuetz 1*

1 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Corson Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jgs15{at}cornell.edu.


  Abstract

For many animals, nest construction is a prerequisite for successful breeding. The choice of nesting materials is an important component of nest construction, because material properties can influence nest design and, potentially, reproductive success. Common waxbills are small African finches that select carnivore scat as a material to include in, on, and around their nests. I investigated the hypothesis that scat functions to reduce predation risk by documenting its use in a wild population of common waxbills and by conducting an artificial nest experiment. Among natural nests, scat was present in every nest that hatched young, and parents continued to add scat to nests throughout the nestling period. Among artificial nests, those that received experimental additions of carnivore scat survived at a significantly higher rate than did untreated nests, suggesting that scat functions to reduce predation risk. The mechanism by which nests are protected remains unclear, although it is likely that scat acts as an olfactory deterrent and/or camouflage. Researchers have long focused on the implications of nest site characteristics for avian life-history evolution. Results of the present study suggest that nest materials, similar to nest sites, may influence life histories of nest-building animals by affecting predation risk.

Keywords: artificial nest; carnivore scat; Estrilda astrild; life-history evolution; nest material; nest predation.
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