Abstract
Many hole-nesting passerine birds accept, or even prefer, nest boxes. Hence most of our knowledge about the breeding biology, population dynamics, life-history evolution and so forth of such species comes from nest box studies. This, in some cases, might lead to erroneous conclusions. For example, breeding density in nest box areas may often be much higher than in the natural situation (e.g. von Haartman, 1971), possibly leading to unnatural density dependent effects. Furthermore, the use of nest boxes may reduce predation risks (e.g. Nilsson 1975, 1984 a,b, Møller 1989), while the routine procedure of cleaning boxes after each breeding season may reduce the number of parasites, thus affecting nest site choice, mate choice and reproductive success (Møller 1989).
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© 1990 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Alatalo, R., Carlson, A., Lundberg, A. (1990). Polygyny and Breeding Success of Pied Flycatchers Nesting in Natural Cavities. In: Blondel, J., Gosler, A., Lebreton, JD., McCleery, R. (eds) Population Biology of Passerine Birds. NATO ASI Series, vol 24. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-75110-3_27
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-75110-3_27
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