Transcript
Use of Lentils in Food Supply for Red-Billed Pigeons (Patagioenas flavirostris) in the Rio Grande Valley
Joshua Perez
Biological Communications, 4490-91L
Research Proposal:
Background: The universal availability of food made accessible to most humans nowadays is what has utterly changed the way that the human species makes decisions in accordance to what to eat and when. That is, in various modern-day societies, humans are gifted with the privilege of having all sorts of food made readily available to them, but it saddens me to find out that this condition is definitely not the case for all animals residing in natural habitats. In various natural habitats, animals are forced to face the difficulty of having to compete, hunt, and kill other animals just so that they’re able to successfully meet their daily nutritional level(s). This is why I have decided to research the scavenging activities and food preference of the Patagioenas flavirostris species—or the Red-Billed Pigeon, for lack of better words. With this research project, I plan to research what specifically affects seed preference for Patagioenas flavirostris birds.
Scientific Question: What sorts of seeds do Red-Billed Pigeons most enjoy, and what exactly are their scavenging behaviors?
Hypothesis: Since past discoveries have found that green is outwardly engaging to most avian species, I believe the red-billed pigeons will most enjoy the green lentils.
Study design: For this experiment, I plan to primarily study the scavenging activities and food preference of the red-billed pigeon. To better conduct my experiment, 200 grams of green, red, and yellow gram lentils are to be placed in a reasonable bolstering dish that will reside in an area that is of open land zone to wildlife (the east, south, and west locations of the park). The location I have chosen to conduct my studies in is the Resaca de la Palma State Park (located in Brownsville, Texas). Through the span of 7 days, the quantity of fowls’ present on a day to day basis are to be recorded at 08:00 am sharp. It is through this experiment that I will realize the scavenging activities and food preference of the red-billed pigeon.
For this experiment, the three types of seeds I will utilize will classify as an “independent variable.” The way that I plan to manipulate this variable is by placing different types of seeds across the park, so that I am able to find out what type of lentils red-billed pigeons most enjoy—the dependent variable, for lack of better words.
Statistical analysis: To further enhance my research, I plan on utilizing the Analysis of Variance method. As obtained through thorough research, the “Analysis of Variance” system defines itself to be a collection of means utilized to compare the different results found throughout a certain group. For this experiment, it is essential to note that each bird feeder will contain a different type of seed, and it is through this method that I will be to keep track of what food is being most enjoyed.
Sample Chart:
Day
Grams of Green, Red, and Yellow Lentil Gram Present:
Number of Birds
In Green
1
2
3
4
5
6
Predications arising from hypothesis:
I definitely feel as if the differences between the bird counts will all be in favor of the presence of green grams.
Amount of Green, Red, and Yellow Gram Lentils Present on Day 1:
(g)
Day:
Number of Birds
in Green:
Number of Birds
in Yellow:
Number of Birds
in Red:
200g
1
4
1
2
200g
2
6
3
0
200g
3
3
0
1
200g
4
44
2
0
200g
5
2
0
2
200g
6
5
1
2
200g
7
8
2
3
Use of Lentils in Food Supply for Red-Billed Pigeons (Patagioenas flavirostris) in the Rio Grande Valley
Annotated Bibliography
Joshua Perez
Biological Communications, 4490-91L
••Díaz, M. 1996. Food choice by seed-eating birds in relation to seed chemistry.
Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Physiology 113:239-246.
Context and Significance:
Diaz’s study dissects the role that seed chemical traits play on the determination of sustenance’s in granivorous winged creatures. He explains that the advancement of a feathered creature’s granivory is broken down and contrasted amongst the jobs of other seed attributes—such as that of seed circulation and seed morphology, for example. Through much of his writing, Diaz also dissects a past audit, and he found the following: 1) the regular dietary movements from seeds to other nourishment things; 2) the dietary impacts between-seeds contrasts in vitality and supplement substance; and 3) the dietary impacts of seed auxiliary science. His results proposed that the impacts of seed science on seed-eating flying creature consumed less calories and were considerably less imperative than the impacts of morphologic characteristics identified with seed handling speed. He also asserted that fowls commonly will in general select the nourishment things they can process quicker, and this is why I believe his studies will highly benefit my oncoming research project.
•Baum, W. (1974). Choice in Free-Ranging Wild Pigeons. Science 185, no. 4145: 78-79. retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1738636.
Context and Significance:
Baum's study placed much attention to a group of free-going wild pigeons, which were all prepared to peck at buttons. These buttons, when worked, enabled brief access to grain. Albeit just a single winged creature at any given moment could approach the catches, the pecks of the gathering were treated as a total. When they picked between two catches, every one of which could infrequently deliver grain, the proportions of pecks at the catches around broke even with the proportions of the grain introductions got from them. This accords with a connection all around substantiated in the research center, the coordinating law. It proposes that the coordinating law may apply to the conduct of higher creatures in indigenous habitats. This article considerably covers the scavenging activities of “free-ranging wild-pigeons.” The reason that I’ve chosen to utilize this study is because I feel as if this study will allow me to further familiarize my audience with the stereotypes, etc. present amongst all types of wild pigeons.
••R. J. Thomas, and N. M. Marples. 2014. Dietary wariness influences the response of foraging birds to competitors. Animal Behaviour 89:63-69.
Context and Significance:
The fact that searching animals choose between common prey and novel prey of uncertain profit and potential threat is a detail that Thomas (and others) pay much attention to throughout the Dietary wariness influences the response of foraging birds to competitors article. To expand, these authors also touch base on how scavengers show a fundamental transient caution of novel sustenance or neophobia. Additionally, they claim that a couple of individuals demonstrate to draw out time of avoidance before intertwining the novel sustenance into their eating routine or dietary conservatism. They link this belief to the fact that there are two stable looking frameworks found inside forager masses: bold customers which rapidly recognize novel sustenances and foragers showing dietary conservatism. The outpouring of these two systems may similarly contrast with normal conditions. The way that I believe this article will enhance my research can be seen in the way that the article touches base on the response of foraging birds when food is present. Having this information readily available to me is what will allow me to come to a better understanding on my potential findings.
•Gionfriddo, J. P. and L. B. Best. 1996. Grit Color Selection by House Sparrows and Northern Bobwhites. The Journal of Wildlife Management 60:836.
Context and Meaning:
Granule shading may be a basic factor influencing avian prologue to granular pesticides when they are obtained incorrectly as coarseness, and is a champion among the most successfully balanced characteristics of pesticide granules. tinted coarseness is inspected by Passer domesticus and Colinus virginianus by offering prisoner winged creatures a coarseness mix involving equal proportions of 8 tones of red, dim shaded, yellow, green, blue, dim, white, clear, either on a light-darker or a dull darker soil establishment. Following 7 days, gizzards of the two species dependably contained progressively yellow and white particles and less beat up particles than foreseen by shot (sparrows: P < 0.025; quails: P < 0.001). Soil establishment shading was not a basic effect on coarseness shading decision by either species. To investigate the effect of sustenance shading on coarseness shading assurance, examinations are reiterated on dull soil simply, using winged animals kept up on sustenance hued to arrange 3 of the 8 coarseness tones of red, yellow, blue. Coarseness shading use again was nonrandom (P < 0.001). As a rule, house sparrows favored dim hued, yellow, and white coarseness, and northern partridges favored yellow and green coarseness. Dull again was of little use by the two species. Sustenance shading did not affect coarseness shading assurance by house sparrows in any way and was connected with nearly nothing quantifiable in the usage of dim and clear coarseness by northern partridges. The results recommend that the tones beat up should be attempted further if the goal is to design pesticide granules in tints terrible to flying animals.
••Banko, P.C., Cipollini, M.L., Brenton, G.W., ie. Seed Chemistry of Sophora chrysophylla (Mamane) in Relation to Diet of Specialist Avian Seed Predator Loxioides bailleui (Palila) in Hawaii. The Journal of Chemical Ecology.
Context and Significance:
This investigation depicts the compound biology of a tritrophic collaboration among animal categories endemic to the island of Hawaii, USA. The article claims that Palila and Cydia both practice on the seed developing lives of mamane yet abstain from eating the seed coats, and it as well states that Palila effectively search out and feed mamane fetuses and Cydia hatchlings to their nestlings. Since mamane fetuses contain conceivably dangerous dimensions of alkaloids, including extensively lethal quinolizidine alkaloids, and in light of the fact that bugs regularly sequester alkaloids from their sustenance plants, the article focuses much of its center around the inquiries of why palila rummage upon mamane incipient organisms and why they supplement their eating regimen with Cydia hatchlings. The information obtained through the article demonstrates that mamane incipient organisms contain high measures of possibly dangerous alkaloids, however are all around adjusted healthfully and contain lipids, sugars, proteins, amino acids, and minerals at levels that are probably going to be adequate for upkeep and rearing. Taken together, these outcomes recommend that palila have advanced resistance to abnormal amounts of alkaloids and that they scrounge upon developing lives fundamentally due to their accessibility in the natural surroundings and high dietary reward. The information that this article presents can absolutely help me link my subject with that of their findings. Doing so will allow me the privilege of being sure that I stay in line and stray away from common misconceptions.
6. ••Breeden, J.B., Small M.F., Baccus, J.T., and Eitniear J.C. 2009. Vegetative Composition of Areas with and Without Breeding Red-Billed Pigeons (Patagioenas flavirostris) in Texas. The Southwestern Naturalist, 54(1):68-73 (2009).
Context and Significance:
As found within much of these researchers findings, an incredible piece of the critical characteristic surroundings of the red-charged pigeon in southern Texas has been lost to cultivating, urban expansion, and changes in water stream in the Rio Grande—given that populations in Texas have been declining since the 1920s. The researchers objectives were to quantify vegetational parameters in regions along the Rio Grande where red-charged pigeons were watched raising and areas where they were not viewed recreating. The examination was coordinated May– September, 2000 and 2001, along 30-km of the Rio Grande, underneath Bird of prey Lake Dam in southern Texas. Observations were made of contemplated length of transect, stature of plants, width of shade, thickness of plants, relative thickness of plants, and percent ground spread among and inside zones. The goal was for associations between height of trees and width of safe house to be seen. Stature of trees and width of covering were increasingly unmistakable in repeating zones. As per the article’s record, the riparian zone was increasingly broad in raising areas and there was progressively vital heterogeneity long of riparian zone inside non-imitating regions. The fact that this article found that raising locales had high noteworthiness regards for Mexican red hot flotsam and jetsam, willow, and Texas coal dark, and a low a motivating force for nectar mesquite is something that’ll help my research project by notifying me of precautionary measures.
7. •Gonzalez, O.L. 2013. Behavioral changes, ecological niches and adaptive diversification in pigeons and doves. 21-44.
Context and Significance:
This experiment found that the remarkable assorted variety of environment, morphology, conduct, and species extravagance over the tree of life has intrigued specialists. It claims that understanding why and how genealogies enhance in phenotype and species numbers remains a noteworthy test in developmental science on the grounds that transformative expansion is an intricate procedure impacted by various components of different nature. The objective of the proposition was to demonstrate how changes fit as a fiddle development by enabling people to adjust the manner in which they connect with their condition or their natural specialty. Such changes, as found by their research, could alter the manner in which specific weights influence populaces, along these lines favoring dissimilar determination that can advance versatile broadening. The fact that this article largely covers the behavioral changes of my specific species is the reason that I believe that this study will highly benefit my research.
8. ••Saunders, Dorothy Chapman. "Microfilariae and Other Blood Parasites in Mexican Wild Doves and Pigeons." The Journal of Parasitology 45, no. 1 (1959): 69-75. doi:10.2307/3274789.
Context and Significance:
Saunders’ study reveals that amid the winters of 1949 to 1952 the essayist made smears of the heart blood of more than 1600 wild feathered creatures from various pieces of Mexico. She mentions that a large portion of them were ducks and geese, yet some were quail, warblers, birds and pigeons, and later explains that the microfilariae present in some of these winged creatures have just been portrayed by Saunders (1955). The present paper manages the blood parasites of a gathering of them which included 72 western white-winged birds (Zenaida asiatica mearnsi) and eastern white-winged pigeons (Z. a. asiatica); 38 western grieving birds (Zenaidura mnacroura marginella); 31 red-charged pigeons (Columba f. flavirostris); 1 Inca pigeon (Scarda-fella inca); and 3 white-fronted birds (Leptotila verreauxi angelica). The universally useful of the examination was to figure out which basic blood parasites were available in these avian hosts (along some bordering cities), and that is why I believe this study will benefit my research.
9. ••Griscom, Ludlow, and Maunsell S. Crosby. "Birds of the Brownsville Region, Southern Texas." The Auk 42, no. 3 (1925): 432-40. doi:10.2307/4074390.
Context and Significance:
Griscom’s central reason for writing the article utterly related back to the presence of two accumulations, which is something she claimed had never been accounted for upon. As per her records, the first was the Sennett Collection now in the American Museum of Natural History, that compromised of about 3,500 skins, arranged by Frazar, Armstrong and Field, mainly somewhere in the range of 1878 and 1891. The second was made by Austin Paul Smith through 1908 to 1912. It comprises of around 1,800 skins now in the Dwight Collection. Numerous records of rarities and expansions of reaches depend on these accumulations. The reason of publication was in hopes of stimulating further investigation. Venturing to South Texas for ornithologists has become increasingly popular, however the recollections are scattered and little have been published. Many of the regular species found in the area are not included in any publications because of the lack of research. Even though only a small amount of investigations have been conducted in the area, Brownsville accounts for a list of 333 different species and subspecies. A key point being that most of the tropical species which exist in the area are at their Northern peak limit, and the amount of winter species which are visitors are the largest of migrating groups.
10. •Mills, J. A. 1979. Factors affection the egg-size of red-billed gulls Larus Novaehollandiae Scopulinus 121:
Context and Significance:
The variation in Red-billed pigeon’s egg size and the numerous influential factors were studied closely in Kaikoura, New Zealand during the years of 1964 to 1972. Researchers focused on 3 areas of concern: length, breadth, and volume. Although the egg size didn’t directly provide the information being sought out, they came to the realization that the abundance of food in their habitat was infact the impactful factor on the laid eggs. Pigeons who laid their eggs at the start of the breeding season commonly laid larger eggs because they are said to be the more efficient hunters for food. In spite of the abundance of food rapidly increasing towards the middle and latter part of breeding season, those birds still laid smaller eggs due to the lack of inexperience foraging. The researchers were able to conclude that the decrease in egg size was closely related to the amount of food available to the red-billed pigeons and their personal ability to seek out sufficient nutritional resources.
