18 July 2016

Too many males?

Cat Morrison is the lead author on a new paper that, using CES data, found biased sex ratios in small migrant populations, as Cat explains:

For many of us the distinctive songs of our migrant birds are a clear sign of the start of spring, however our recent study indicates that these songs may be masking bigger problems for these species.

Using data collected by ringers we explored the spatial variation in sex ratios of Willow Warblers at CE sites. Our analysis revealed that in 1994, the male-female ratio was around 50:50 however, by 2012 males had started to outnumber females, with the male-female ratio increasing to 60:40. Interestingly, it was also clear that male-bias sites were most common in the south-east of England, where populations have recently declined and Willow Warblers are at relatively low abundances. 

Willow Warbler. Photo by Edmund Fellowes.

We wondered if it was possible that male-biased sex ratios could be due to greater female mortality in the smaller populations, where the greater costs of breeding for females may be exacerbated by poorer resources. However, although male mortality rates were lower than females, this difference was not greater in sites with strongly male-bias sex ratios. Instead, it is likely that the increase in the male-female ratio is the result of female choice, with individuals preferentially recruiting into larger populations, leaving males unpaired in the small populations. This could mean that conservation efforts will be most successful by focusing on sites capable of supporting large populations with more equal sex ratios.

Our work also has implications for how we monitor our bird species, as the higher frequency of unpaired males, singing later into the breeding season can lead to an over estimation of the breeding abundance in male-bias populations.

Further reading:
Morrison, C. A., Robinson, R. A., Clark, J. A. & Gill, J. A. (2016) Causes and consequences of spatial variation in sex ratios in a declining bird species. Journal of Animal Ecology. doi:10.1111/1365-2656.12556

No comments:

Post a Comment