Breeding tropical forages

Breeding Strategies of Tropical Birds

Migrants in tropical bird communities: the balanced breeding limitation hypothesis

Explanations for the ecological integration of migratory and non-migratory (resident) insectivorous birds in the tropics have been complicated by the paradox that arthropod abundances are low when bird abundances reach their annual peak. The breeding currency hypothesis and the nest predation hypothesis both account for this paradox by postulating that residents are held below the non-breeding ...

Understanding testosterone variation in a tropical lek-breeding bird.

Male reproductive coalitions, in which males cooperate to attract females, are a rare strategy among vertebrates. While some studies have investigated ultimate aspects of these relationships, little is known about the mechanistic role that hormones play in modulating cooperative behaviours. Here, we examined male testosterone variation in a tropical lekking bird, the wire-tailed manakin (Pipra ...

Forages and Pastures: Harvested Forages and Forage Quality

Ferulate-mediated lignin/hemicellulose cross linking in grasses reduces in vitro NDF digestibility (IVNDFD). Impact of ferulate cross linking on animal performance was examined in lamb digestibility and dairy cow performance trials using the seedling ferulate ester (sfe) corn mutant that reduces cross linking and improves IVNDFD. Digestibility of control (W23) and 2 near-isogenic sfe (M04–4 and...

The Sub-Annual Breeding Cycle of a Tropical Seabird

Breeding periodicity allows organisms to synchronise breeding attempts with the most favourable ecological conditions under which to raise offspring. For most animal species, ecological conditions vary seasonally and usually impose an annual breeding schedule on their populations; sub-annual breeding schedules will be rare. We use a 16-year dataset of breeding attempts by a tropical seabird, th...