Data from: The secret life of oilbirds: new insights into the movement ecology of a unique avian frugivore
Data from: The secret life of oilbirds: new insights into the movement ecology of a unique avian frugivore
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2012-03-15
Citation
Holland RA, Wikelski M, Kuemmeth F, Bosque C. 2012. Data from: The secret life of oilbirds: new insights into the movement ecology of a unique avian frugivore. Movebank Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.5441/001/1.35fs26kqAbstract
Background: Steatornis caripensis (the oilbird) is a very unusual bird. It supposedly never sees daylight, roosting in huge aggregations in caves during the day and bringing back fruit to the cave at night. As a consequence a large number of the seeds from the fruit they feed upon germinate in the cave and spoil.
Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we use newly developed GPS/acceleration loggers with remote UHF readout to show that several assumptions about the behaviour of Steatornis caripensis need to be revised. On average, they spend only every 3rd day in a cave, individuals spent most days sitting quietly in trees in the rainforest where they regurgitate seeds.
Conclusions/Significance: This provides new data on the extent of seed dispersal and the movement ecology of Steatornis caripensis. It suggests that Steatornis caripensis is perhaps the most important long-distance seed disperser in Neotropical forests. We also show that colony-living comes with high activity costs to individuals.
Keywords
Steatornis caripensis,animal tracking,GPS logger,oilbirds,seed dispersal,Steatornis caripensis,Venezuela
DOIs of related Publications
BibTex
@misc{001/1_35fs26kq,
title = {Data from: The secret life of oilbirds: new insights into the movement ecology of a unique avian frugivore},
author = {Holland, RA and Wikelski, M and Kuemmeth, F and Bosque, C},
year = {2012},
URL = {http://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.35fs26kq},
doi = {doi:10.5441/001/1.35fs26kq},
publisher = {Movebank data repository}
}RIS
TY - DATA ID - doi:10.5441/001/1.35fs26kq T1 - Data from: The secret life of oilbirds: new insights into the movement ecology of a unique avian frugivore AU - Holland, Richard A. AU - Wikelski, Martin AU - Kuemmeth, Franz AU - Bosque, Carlos Y1 - 2012/03/15 KW - Steatornis caripensis KW - animal movement KW - animal tracking KW - GPS logger KW - oilbirds KW - seed dispersal KW - Steatornis caripensis KW - Venezuela KW - Steatornis caripensis PB - Movebank data repository UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.35fs26kq DO - doi:10.5441/001/1.35fs26kq ER -