Connecting the data landscape of long-term ecological studies: The SPI-Birds data hub

The integration and synthesis of the data in different areas of science is drastically slowed and hindered by a lack of standards and networking programmes. Long-term studies of individually marked animals are not an exception. These studies are especially important as instrumental for understanding evolutionary and ecological processes in the wild. Furthermore, their number and global distribution provides a unique opportunity to assess the generality of patterns and to address broad-scale global issues (e.g. climate change). To solve data integration issues and enable a new scale of ecological and evolutionary research based on long-term studies of birds, we have created the SPI-Birds Network and Database (www.spibirds.org)\u2014a large-scale initiative that connects data from, and researchers working on, studies of wild populations of individually recognizable (usually ringed) birds. Within year and a half since the establishment, SPI-Birds has recruited over 120 members, and currently hosts data on almost 1.5 million individual birds collected in 80 populations over 2,000 cumulative years, and counting. SPI-Birds acts as a data hub and a catalogue of studied populations. It prevents data loss, secures easy data finding, use and integration and thus facilitates collaboration and synthesis. We provide community-derived data and meta-data standards and improve data integrity guided by the principles of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR), and aligned with the existing metadata languages (e.g. ecological meta-data language). The encouraging community involvement stems from SPI-Bird's decentralized approach: research groups retain full control over data use and their way of data management, while SPI-Birds creates tailored pipelines to convert each unique data format into a standard format. We outline the lessons learned, so that other communities (e.g. those working on other taxa) can adapt our successful model. Creating community-specific hubs (such as ours, COMADRE for animal demography, etc.) will aid much-needed large-scale ecological data integration

Where have all the fleas gone? Low levels of blue tit Parus caeruleus nests infestation

Prevalence of flea infestation in nests of Blue Tit Parus caeruleus was analyzed and compared with these of other hole-nesting birds. Nests were collected from nestboxes prior to youngs fledging. It was found that prevalence of fleas was very low in comparison to other studies of Blue Tits nests and to other bird species. The possible reasons of this low prevalence are discussed

Parasites of chaffinch [Fringilla coelebs] population. Part I. Coccidia [Protozoa, Apicomplexa]

Coccidia infection in Chaffinch population in Mazurian Lakeland was studied. Birds were caught in mist nets from June to September and droppings were collected after defecation. Prevalence of infection was high - 80% of Chaffinches excreted oocysts of Isospora sp. Intensity of oocysts' production varied depending on the time of the day and therefore coccidia prevalence in Chaffinch should be best detectable in birds caught after midday

Parasites of chaffinch [Fringilla coelebs] population. Part 2. Blood parasites

Blood parasites of Chaffinches caught from June to October near Łuknajno Lake (Mazurian Lakeland) were studied. Only parasites belonging to the genera Haemoproteus were found. A decrease in prevalence as the season progressed was observed. No differences in blood parasite infections in relation to the sex of the birds were found. Also males body weight was not affected by the presence of parasites

The design of artificial nestboxes for the study of secondary hole-nesting birds: A review of methodological inconsistencies and potential biases

The widespread use of artificial nestboxes has led to significant advances in our knowledge of the ecology, behaviour and physiology of cavity nesting birds, especially small passerines. Nestboxes have made it easier to perform routine monitoring and experimental manipulation of eggs or nestlings, and also repeatedly to capture, identify and manipulate the parents. However, when comparing results across study sites the use of nestboxes may also introduce a potentially significant confounding variable in the form of differences in nestbox design amongst studies, such as their physical dimensions, placement height, and the way in which they are constructed and maintained. However, the use of nestboxes may also introduce an unconsidered and potentially significant confounding variable due to differences in nestbox design amongst studies, such as their physical dimensions, placement height, and the way in which they are constructed and maintained. Here we review to what extent the characteristics of artificial nestboxes (e.g. size, shape, construction material, colour) are documented in the ‘methods’ sections of publications involving hole-nesting passerine birds using natural or excavated cavities or artificial nestboxes for reproduction and roosting. Despite explicit previous recommendations that authors describe in detail the characteristics of the nestboxes used, we found that the description of nestbox characteristics in most recent publications remains poor and insufficient. We therefore list the types of descriptive data that should be included in the methods sections of relevant manuscripts and justify this by discussing how variation in nestbox characteristics can affect or confound conclusions from nestbox studies. We also propose several recommendations to improve the reliability and usefulness of research based on long-term studies of any secondary hole-nesting species using artificial nestboxes for breeding or roosting.

Interaction of climate change with effects of conspecific and heterospecific density on reproduction

We studied the relationship between temperature and the coexistence of great tit Parus major and blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus, breeding in 75 study plots across Europe and North Africa. We expected an advance in laying date and a reduction in clutch size during warmer springs as a general response to climate warming and a delay in laying date and a reduction in clutch size during warmer winters due to density-dependent effects. As expected, as spring temperature increases laying date advances and as winter temperature increases clutch size is reduced in both species. Density of great tit affected the relationship between winter temperature and laying date in great and blue tit. Specifically, as density of great tit increased and temperature in winter increased both species started to reproduce later. Density of blue tit affected the relationship between spring temperature and blue and great tit laying date. Thus, both species start to reproduce earlier with increasing spring temperature as density of blue tit increases, which was not an expected outcome, since we expected that increasing spring temperature should advance laying date, while increasing density should delay it cancelling each other out. Climate warming and its interaction with density affects clutch size of great tits but not of blue tits. As predicted, great tit clutch size is reduced more with density of blue tits as temperature in winter increases. The relationship between spring temperature and density on clutch size of great tits depends on whether the increase is in density of great tit or blue tit. Therefore, an increase in temperature negatively affected the coexistence of blue and great tits differently in both species. Thus, blue tit clutch size was unaffected by the interaction effect of density with temperature, while great tit clutch size was affected in multiple ways by these interactions terms

Clutch-size variation in Western Palaearctic secondary hole-nesting passerine birds in relation to nest box design

* Secondary hole-nesting birds that do not construct nest holes themselves and hence regularly breed in nest boxes constitute important model systems for field studies in many biological disciplines with hundreds of scientists and amateurs involved. Those research groups are spread over wide geographic areas that experience considerable variation in environmental conditions, and researchers provide nest boxes of varying designs that may inadvertently introduce spatial and temporal variation in reproductive parameters. * We quantified the relationship between mean clutch size and nest box size and material after controlling for a range of environmental variables in four of the most widely used model species in the Western Palaearctic: great tit Parus major, blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus, pied flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca and collared flycatcher F. albicollis from 365 populations and 79 610 clutches. * Nest floor area and nest box material varied non-randomly across latitudes and longitudes, showing that scientists did not adopt a random box design. Clutch size increased with nest floor area in great tits, but not in blue tits and flycatchers. Clutch size of blue tits was larger in wooden than in concrete nest boxes. * These findings demonstrate that the size of nest boxes and material used to construct nest boxes can differentially affect clutch size in different species. The findings also suggest that the nest box design may affect not only focal species, but also indirectly other species through the effects of nest box design on productivity and therefore potentially population density and hence interspecific competition. [KEYWORDS: geographic location habitat latitude longitude nest box floor area nest box material

Clutch-size variation in Western Palaearctic secondary hole-nesting passerine birds in relation to nest box design

* Secondary hole-nesting birds that do not construct nest holes themselves and hence regularly breed in nest boxes constitute important model systems for field studies in many biological disciplines with hundreds of scientists and amateurs involved. Those research groups are spread over wide geographic areas that experience considerable variation in environmental conditions, and researchers provide nest boxes of varying designs that may inadvertently introduce spatial and temporal variation in reproductive parameters. * We quantified the relationship between mean clutch size and nest box size and material after controlling for a range of environmental variables in four of the most widely used model species in the Western Palaearctic: great tit Parus major, blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus, pied flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca and collared flycatcher F. albicollis from 365 populations and 79 610 clutches. * Nest floor area and nest box material varied non-randomly across latitudes and longitudes, showing that scientists did not adopt a random box design. Clutch size increased with nest floor area in great tits, but not in blue tits and flycatchers. Clutch size of blue tits was larger in wooden than in concrete nest boxes. * These findings demonstrate that the size of nest boxes and material used to construct nest boxes can differentially affect clutch size in different species. The findings also suggest that the nest box design may affect not only focal species, but also indirectly other species through the effects of nest box design on productivity and therefore potentially population density and hence interspecific competition. [KEYWORDS: geographic location habitat latitude longitude nest box floor area nest box material]