Dissertation Research: Dead-Leaf Foraging Specialization by Tropical Forest Birds

论文研究：热带森林鸟类的枯叶觅食专业化

• 批准号: 8800905
• 负责人: James Remsen
• 金额: $ 0.61万
• 依托单位: Louisiana State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1988
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1988-07-01 至 1989-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8800905&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dissertation; Research; Dead; Leaf; Foraging

This research will document an extreme foraging specialization that is unique to diverse tropical bird communities, and then test specific hypotheses concerning the maintenance of this specialization. A dozen bird species at each of two Amazonian rainforest sites were found to forage primarily by extracting arthropods from curled dead leaves suspended in the forest understory. Because the dead leaves represent discrete resource patches, this research can quantify leaf availability and use, as well as the abundance of available prey. A preliminary empirical study suggests the following predictions to be tested in a series of outdoor cage experiments on wild-caught birds and arthropods: 1) dead leaf specialists have fixed preferences for dead leaf vs. other substrates, but are flexible with respect to particular types; 2) specialists are more efficient than co-occurring generalists at capturing prey hiding in dead leaves; 3) dead-leaf arthropods have fixed preferences for hiding in these leaves; and 4) these arthropods exhibit stereotyped behavioral responses to bird predation that in turn influence the bird's foraging efficiency. This study differs from most other insectivorous bird studies in two important ways; first, food availability and diets are measured directly rather than inferred from feeding behavior or morphology, and second, the amenability of this resource system to experimental manipulation provides a rare opportunity to evaluate the role of the various processes that may promote specialization.

这项研究将记录一种极端的觅食专业化，该专业是多样化的热带鸟类社区独有的，然后测试有关维持这种专业化的特定假设。在两个亚马逊雨林遗址中的每个鸟类中的每个鸟类中的每个物种中，都发现主要是通过悬挂在森林林下的卷曲的死叶中提取节肢动物来觅食。 由于枯叶代表离散的资源贴片，因此这项研究可以量化叶片的可用性和使用，以及丰富的可用猎物。 一项初步实证研究表明，在一系列关于野生鸟类和节肢动物的户外笼实验中要测试的预测：1）死叶专家对死叶与其他底物具有固定的偏好，但在特定类型方面具有灵活性； 2）专家比共同出现的通才捕获藏在枯叶中的猎物更有效； 3）死叶节肢动物对隐藏这些叶子具有固定的偏好； 4）这些节肢动物表现出对鸟类捕食的陈规定型行为反应，进而影响鸟类的觅食效率。 这项研究以两种重要方式与大多数其他昆虫鸟类研究不同。 首先，直接测量粮食的可用性和饮食，而不是从喂养行为或形态中推断出来，其次，该资源系统对实验操作的不舒服性为评估可能促进专业化的各种过程的作用提供了难得的机会。