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Cited by 31Avian ecology and behaviorAnimal Behavior and ReproductionAnimal Ecology and Behavior Studies

Nest initiation and flooding in response to season and semi-lunar spring tides in a ground-nesting shorebird

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Plaschke, Silvia, Bulla, Martin, Cruz-López, Medardo, Gómez del Ángel, Salvador, Küpper, Clemens·2019·Frontiers in Zoology
DOI 10.1186/s12983-019-0313-1PMC PMC6533712
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Abstract

Background: Marine and intertidal organisms face the rhythmic environmental changes induced by tides. The large amplitude of spring tides that occur around full and new moon may threaten nests of ground-nesting birds. These birds face a trade-off between ensuring nest safety from tidal flooding and nesting near the waterline to provide their newly hatched offspring with suitable foraging opportunities. The semi-lunar periodicity of spring tides may enable birds to schedule nest initiation adaptively, for example, by initiating nests around tidal peaks when the water line reaches the farthest into the intertidal habitat. We examined the impact of semi-lunar tidal changes on the phenology of nest flooding and nest initiation in Snowy Plovers (Charadrius nivosus) breeding at Bahía de Ceuta, a coastal wetland in Northwest Mexico. Results: Using nest initiations and fates of 752 nests monitored over ten years we found that the laying season coincides with the lowest spring tides of the year and only 6% of all nests were flooded by tides. Tidal nest flooding varied substantially over time. First, flooding was the primary cause of nest failures in two of the ten seasons indicating high between-season stochasticity. Second, nests were flooded almost exclusively during the second half of the laying season. Third, nest flooding was associated with the semi-lunar spring tide cycle as nests initiated around spring tide had a lower risk of being flooded than nests initiated at other times. Following the spring tide rhythm, plovers appeared to adapt to this risk of flooding with nest initiation rates highest around spring tides and lowest around neap tides. Conclusions: Snowy Plovers appear generally well adapted to the risk of nest flooding by spring tides. Our results are in line with other studies showing that intertidal organisms have evolved adaptive responses to predictable rhythmic tidal changes but these adaptations do not prevent occasional catastrophic losses caused by stochastic events.

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  • This is good news for those who want to apply models with Gaussian error structure to binomial or count data when models with other structures fail to reach convergence or produce nonsensical estimates.

    “This is good news also for those who want to apply models with Gaussian error structure to binomial or count data when models with other structures fail to reach convergence or produce nonsensical estimates (e.g., Ives & Garland, 2014; Plaschke et al., 2019).”

    From Violating the normality assumption may be the lesser of two evils (2021) · cites this paper as Plaschke et al., 2019

    In Methods > Statistical analysis (page not provided), the paper reports that Gaussian models fitted its binomial and count data better than the binomial or Poisson models. The Table 1 note also says a binomial model with female identity did not converge. The paper does not report that the alternative models produced nonsensical estimates. (LLM, conf=0.85)

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Authors
Plaschke, S., Bulla, M., Cruz-López, M., Gómez del Ángel, S., & Küpper, C.
Affiliations
  • University of Graz (AT)
  • Max Planck Society (DE)
Corresponding author
  • Bulla, Martin
  • Küpper, Clemens
ORCID
Venue
Frontiers in Zoology
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2019-05-23
Volume
16
Issue
1
Pages
15-15
ISSN
1742-9994 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1186/s12983-019-0313-1
PMC
PMC6533712
OpenAlex
W2947929989
Cited by
31
References
65
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 1
FWCI
1.59
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Frontiers in Zoology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • NIOZ Publications (Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Flanders Marine Institute (Flanders Marine Institute) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
  • H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (4231.1 SocialJetLag)
  • Czech University of Life Sciences (CIGA 2018421)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Avian ecology and behavior
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies
Keywords
Snowy Plover, Charadrius nivosus, nest flooding, nest initiation, spring tides, nest failure, intertidal adaptation, breeding season

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