Great bustards, the world’s largest flying bird and the county mascot for Wiltshire, became extinct in the UK in 1832. The LIFE+ Great Bustard Reintroduction Project is a partnership between the Great Bustard Group, RSPB, Natural England and the University of Bath, which has been working together to establish a self-sustaining population of Great Bustards in southern England.

The reintroduction project has been regularly rearing chicks imported from Saratov, Russia and releasing them once they are fully fledged at a secret location on Salisbury Plain. For the first time this year, they have also successfully hatched chicks from eggs brought over from Russia.

As part of the conservation project,  Scott Gooch and Dr Kate Ashbrook from the University of Bath LIFE+ project monitoring team have been collecting droppings of the released birds to monitor what they prefer eating and how their diet changes through the year.

Scott Gooch explained: “Relatively little is known about the diets of great bustards living in the UK. Watching bustards in the wild can give you information on where they prefer to feed and how much of their time they devote to feeding, but by examining their droppings under a microscope we can discover the quantities of different insects and plants in their diet and how this changes across the year.”

Understanding what the birds eat in the wild will help the development of targeted habitat management for great bustards in the UK.

Dr Ashbrook explained: “The success of this reintroduction project depends on whether there is enough food to support great bustards through the autumn and winter.

“We believe there is, but it is important to monitor their diet so we can ensure there is sufficient suitable habitat for them as the population grows, and to establish more through agri-environment management if needs be.”

Researchers from the University of Bath have established a mathematical model that goes some way to explain the very strange mating behaviour of the tiny Penduline tit.

This misbehaving European bird has a unique attitude to relationships, often resulting in fertilised eggs being abandoned and partners being ‘divorced’.

The male of the species starts the mating process by building an extremely sophisticated nest that hangs, like a pendulum, between forked tree twigs.

However, in a move that human men may sympathise with, the male bird leaves the finishing touches of the nest until a potential mate arrives. He uses the good nest foundations that he has built to lure her in, and then works with her to complete the dwelling to her specifications.

After completing the nest together, which can take up to two weeks and is lined with a couple of centimetres of soft cushioning to keep the eggs warm, in what appears a heartless move either the male or the female will ‘divorce’ its partner and abandon the nest.

Scientists have been baffled by this strange behaviour for decades, but now researchers have established a model that helps to explain the bird’s callous behaviour.

Professor Tamas Szekely, from the University of Bath’s Department of Biology & Biochemistry, has led the research. He said: “There is no logic to decide which parent leaves the nest; before this project all we knew for sure was that on no account did both parents stay and rear the young.

“Both parents have the same capabilities when it comes to raising their offspring, so the gender of the remaining bird makes no difference to the welfare of the chicks.

“The parent that leaves the nest will usually go on to mate again, with each ‘divorcing’ parent taking up to four or five new mating partners during a four month season!”

In order to explain the strange mating behaviour of the birds the researchers looked to calculate whether there was a biological benefit to either parent staying with the nest while the other left.

Professor Szekely said: “We tried to calculate how many offspring were produced in each circumstance – when the mother left, when the father left, or when both parents left the nest.

“However, because the bird that leaves can go on to have additional breeding partners during the course of the season, simple mathematical calculations aren’t possible.

This complication led the researchers to explore game theory models – a mathematical method for analysing calculated circumstances where an individual’s success is based upon the choices of others.

University of Bath PhD research student Dr Rene van Dijk, now [X] at the University of Sheffield, tested game theory models against the birds’ behaviour.

Dr van Dijk said: “The most applicable game to the birds mating behaviour was the ‘snowdrift game’ – used widely to explain the evolution of human cooperation.

“The game states that in a snowdrift, if two vehicles were stuck and their survival depended on them tunnelling to reach one-another, each would have equal gain from the digging of a tunnel. However each could also wait until the other party dug the tunnel, therefore eliminating any personal effort while maintaining their claim to the benefit.

“The behaviour of the birds is somewhat similar to this – they each gain genetically from breeding, but each bird could also gain from leaving this nurturing stage to their partner and instead start breeding again with another bird. We used the model to predict the behaviour of a population of birds, but also introduced a level of individual variation, and on measuring the observed reality we found it to be very similar.

“The birds therefore gamble on whether or not the other parent will stay with the offspring and raise them. The parent that remains puts in the most effort and loses out on the opportunity of further breeding during the season, but both parents gain a benefit.

“In some cases the gamble doesn’t pay off, with both parents leaving after the eggs are laid resulting in the nest being unsuccessful. However both parents are making the gamble that during a whole breeding season, some of their partners will make the decision to stay with the nest when they move on.”

The research highlighted that the only difference between the result of the mother’s and the father’s care is that the mother’s clutch will eventually be larger as she continues to lay fertilised eggs following the departure of the father. However, while this might explain why mother-care is more prevalent that father-care, it bears no testament to either parent’s ability to raise the chicks successfully.

Professor Szekely added: “The real beauty of this project was in demonstrating that not only can we use this method to develop a scientific understanding of animal behaviour, but that we can do this in situations where the particular behaviour appears to be quite simply crazy. Having proven that this technique works there are wide potential applications for further studies.”

The research was carried out in collaboration with the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary. Findings have been published this week in the journal ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences’.

Penduline tits are water-loving birds often seen in marsh areas and along rivers and canals. Their breeding season lasts for four months, from April through to July. The birds move to forest areas to breed, building pendulum-like nests hanging from the trees. The tits are common throughout continental Europe and a number of non-breeding migrant birds are spotted in the UK each year.

The University of Bath

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Andrew Taylor, Great Bustard LIFE Project Adviser for RSPB said; “This year’s released birds have been out for eight weeks now, and most are starting to roam more widely around their original release sites. However, some have been rather more adventurous than others! Black Six, named after the numbered black wing tag she carries, was last seen by project staff on the day of her release. She spent a couple of weeks on a neighbouring farm, but then went off the radar. At dawn on 5 November, a great bustard was seen flying south from Portland Bill in Dorset, and then the following lunchtime we received a report of Black Six in a field at South Huish, near Kingsbridge in Devon. She flew north an hour later. This week, 21 November, we received a report of another bustard, this time without wing tags, but with a radio transmitter, on land owned by The National Trust near Langton Matravers in south Purbeck. They certainly are getting around.”

Conservationists are looking forward to seeing where the bustards will fly to next, but are appealing to the public for help.

Trace Williams Great Bustard LIFE Manager for RSPB said: “Of the 17 birds in the wild we are able to track nine directly as they have radio and satellite transmitters. The remaining birds however have no transmitters so we need people who see them, and notice the very visible numbered wing tags, to let us know by calling 01980 671466 or reporting them via the website greatbustard.org.

To read more, visit www.bath.ac.uk/research/news/2011/11/24/bustards-on-tour/ and www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-15826625; to see footage of Black 06 in Devon, see www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdQ_blrTxh8.

The scientists studied nearly 50 different song birds during their research.Prof

Prof Tamas Szekely has recently published a papar in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, PNAS, with Professor Tim Devoogd and Dr Jordan Moore of Cornell University and Jozsef Buki of the Hungarian Ornithological Institute.

The comparative study finds a link between the size of bird brains and the complexity of the birds song. Read the University of Bath feature story on their website or you can find the article at the PNAS website.

Feature from ITV West Country Tonight, reproduced with their kind permission.

Live interview with Al Dawes (GBG) and John Burnside for BBC Points West, reproduced with their kind permission.

Ceuta Snowy Plover Project

Now they are looking for field assistents. If you are interested and are available from April to July, get in touch via their website:

Ceuta Snowy Plover Project or on Facebook or email Dr Clemens Küpper: ckuepper@oeb.harvard.edu

Snowy Plover Chick

Ahmed Djoghlaf

Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the CBD and Monique Barbut, CEO and Chair of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), will discuss the CBD’s bold plans and the importance of taking action now to avert even more serious loss of biodiversity; how the entire UN system is driving to make the UNBD a lasting success, and the role of the GEF.

The show will be live and interactive so that you can send in your questions before and also during the live broadcast, or just watch the programme right from our site, or directly from the CBD website.

Fundación Conserva

Today is the second Birthday of Fundación Conserva, a non-profit organisation which aims to promote and protect biodiversity in Columbia. Fundación Conserva was set-up by Jorge Parra (along with his wife Marcela Beltran),  who is studying for his PhD here in the Biodiversity Lab, University of Bath.

Current projects that the NGO is carrying out include Project Chicamocha, which aims to conserve two critically endangered endemic birds, the Niceforo’s Wren (Thryothorus nicefori) and the Chestnut-bellied Hummingbird (Amazilia castaneiventris). These birds are only found in the Chicamocha region in Columbia, an area of about 300,000 hectares, east of the Andes. This area contains many other endemic and rare species of flora and fauna and is under threat from habitat destruction and fragmentation through agricultural intensification, fires and infrastructural change, such as dams.

Chestbut-bellied Hummingbird

The project was initially funded by the Conservation Leadership Programme, but is a charitable organisation so also seeks further funding. If you are interested in finding out more about the work or helping to fund it, you can follow the project on Facebook or keep up to date with their work on Fundación Conserva website.

Together with his supervisor Matthew Wills they successfully initiated a Brief Communications Arising against the original Nature article, and this has now been published in Nature here under the title ‘Phylogenetic position of Diania challenged’.

Congratulations should also go to another group, Legg et al who also independently spotted many of the same problems and also got a BCA published criticising the original article, which is available here

References:

Legg, D. A. et al. Lobopodian phylogeny reanalysed. Nature 476, E1 (2011). URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10267.

Mounce, R. C. P. & Wills, M. A. Phylogenetic position of diania challenged. Nature 476, E1 (2011). URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10266.

Liu, J. et al. An armoured cambrian lobopodian from china with arthropod-like appendages. Nature 470, 526-530 (2011). URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09704.