Hematological indicators of habitat quality: Erythrocyte parameters reflect greater parental effort of Red-necked Grebes under ecological trap conditions

[摘要] ABSTRACT Knowledge about interactions between habitat quality and individual condition is vital for understanding ecological processes. We examined variation in commonly used hematological indices and body mass in incubating and chick-rearing Red-necked Grebes (Podiceps grisegena) in Poland breeding under contrasting foraging conditions in ponds used for aquaculture. Grebes used either ponds with low prey availability in the early breeding period and abundant food in the brood-rearing stage (high-quality habitat), or ponds stocked with fish attractive as prey to spring-arriving adults yet later unavailable to chicks due to size constraints (low-quality habitat acting as an ecological trap). Parental effort, measured as the proportion of time allocated to food acquisition and provisioning of chicks, was greater in the low-quality habitat, although adult grebes spent less time foraging there than in the high-quality habitat early in the season. Scaled body mass was higher in incubating grebes than in brood-...

[学科分类] 动物科学

[关键词] condition indices;ecophysiology;foraging effort;habitat selection;reproductive costs