Biology subjects

Basille, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Basille, M..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2019

Evaluating the data quality of iNaturalist termite records

Citizen science (CS) contributes to the combined knowledge about species distributions, which is a critical foundation in the studies of invasive species, biological conservation, and response to climatic change. In this study, we assessed the value of CS for termites worldwide. First, we compared the abundance and species diversity of geo-tagged termite records in iNaturalist to that of the University of Florida termite collection (UFTC) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Second, we quantified how the combination of these data sources affected the number of genera that satisfy data requirements for ecological niche modeling. Third, we assessed the taxonomic correctness of iNaturalist termite records in the Americas at the genus and family level through expert review based on photo identification. Results showed that iNaturalist records were less abundant than those in UFTC and in GBIF, although they complemented the latter two in selected world regions. A combination of GBIF and UFTC led to a significant increase in the number of termite genera satisfying the abundance criterion for niche modeling compared to either of those two sources alone, whereas adding iNaturalist observations as a third source only had a moderate effect on the number of termite genera satisfying that criterion. Although research grade observations in iNaturalist require a community-supported and agreed upon ID below the family taxonomic rank, our results indicated that iNaturalist data do not exhibit a higher taxonomic classification accuracy when they are designated research grade. This means that non-research grade observations can be used to more completely map the presence of termite locations in certain geographic locations without significantly jeopardizing data quality. We concluded that CS termite observation records can, to some extent, complement expert termite collections in terms of geographic coverage and species diversity. Based on recent data contribution patterns in CS data, the role of CS termite contributions is expected to grow significantly in the near future.

zoology↗

bioRxiv2019

EFFECT OF PARENTAL CARE ON REPRODUCTIVE SUCCESS IN WOOD STORKS (MYCTERIA AMERICANA)

In many species of birds, parental care is provided by both parents to maximize offspring survival, and there may be important trade-offs between maximizing food gathering and nest protection during the nesting period. The role of parental care in determining reproductive success was investigated in Wood Storks (Mycteria americana), and specifically how the trade-off between frequency and duration of foraging trips, and nest protection has contributed to the nesting outcome. Parental behavior of 85 pairs of Wood Storks was monitored throughout the nesting season in two breeding colonies in Palm Beach County, Florida. Wood Storks have gradually increased the frequency, but not the duration, of foraging trips as chicks developed. The ratio of hatchlings to fledglings was positively associated with the frequency of foraging trips during late chick development. Intra-specific aggressions resulting in nest takeovers have affected 32 % of the nests under study. Occurrence of nest takeovers have been higher for later-breeding pairs, and was happened primarily in the first few weeks of incubation, but was not affected by the degree of joint nest attendance of both parents. These results establish a functional link between parental effort and reproductive outcome in Wood Storks, and highlight the importance of frequent foraging trips, but not nest attendance, by parents.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.View Full Text

zoology↗

bioRxiv2019

A data-driven method to locate nest sites and estimate reproductive outcome from avian telemetry data

Recursive movement patterns have been used to detect behavioral structure within individual movement trajectories in the context of foraging ecology, home-ranging behavior, and predator avoidance. Some animals exhibit movement recursions to locations that are tied to reproductive functions, including nests and dens; while existing literature recognizes that, no method is currently available to explicitly target different types of revisited locations. Moreover, the temporal persistence of recursive movements to a breeding location can carry information regarding the fate of breeding attempts, but it has never been used as a metric to quantify recursive movement patterns. Here, we introduce a method to locate breeding attempts and estimate their fate from GPS-tracking data of central place foragers. We tested the performance of our method in three bird species differing in breeding ecology (wood stork (Mycteria americana), lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni), Mediterranean gull (Ichthyaetus melanocephalus)) and implemented it in the R package nestR. We identified breeding sites based on the analysis of recursive movements within individual tracks. Using trajectories with known breeding attempts, we estimated a set of species-specific criteria for the identification of nest sites, which we further validated using non-reproductive individuals as controls. We then estimated individual nest survival as a binary measure of reproductive fate (success, corresponding to fledging of at least one chick, or failure) from nest-site revisitation histories during breeding attempts, using a Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach that accounted for temporally variable revisitation patterns, probability of visit detection, and missing data. Across the three species, positive predictive value of the nest-site detection algorithm varied between 87-100% and sensitivity between 88-92%, and we correctly estimated the fate of 86-100% breeding attempts. By providing a method to formally distinguish among revisited locations that serve different ecological functions and introducing a probabilistic framework to quantify temporal persistence of movement recursions, we demonstrated how the analysis of recursive movement patterns can be applied to estimate reproduction in central place foragers. Beyond avian species, the principles of our method can be applied to other central place foraging breeders such as denning mammals. Our method estimates a component of individual fitness from movement data and will help bridge the gap between movement behavior, environmental factors, and their fitness consequences.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

Joint seasonality in geographic and ecological spaces, illustrated with a partially migratory bird

As most species live in seasonal environments, considering varying conditions is essential to understand species dynamics in both geographic and ecological spaces. Both resident and migratory species need to contend with seasonality, and balance settling in favorable areas with tracking favorable environmental conditions during the year. We present an exploratory framework to jointly investigate a species niche in geographic and ecological spaces, applied to wood storks (Mycteria americana), which are partially migratory wading birds, in the southeastern U.S. We concurrently described monthly geographic distributions and climatic niches based on temperature and precipitation. Geographic distributions of wood storks were more similar throughout the year than were climatic niches, suggesting that birds stay within specific areas seasonally, rather than tracking areas of similar climate. However, wood storks expressed consistent selection of warm areas during the winter, and wet areas during the summer, indicating that the selection of seasonal ranges may be directly related to environmental conditions across the entire range. Our flexible framework, which simultaneously considered geographic and ecological spaces, suggested that tracking climate alone did not explain seasonal distributions of wood storks in breeding and non-breeding areas.

ecology↗