Summary
By removing older males from their breeding territories, we tested the hypothesis that age-related dominance behavior influenced the pattern of habitat selection by breeding American redstarts Setophaga ruticilla (Aves: Parulinae). Fifteen older male redstarts removed in five experimental replicates during three breeding seasons were replaced by ten yearling and five older males; no redstart males of either age colonized the control sites during the same time periods, although two yearlings disappeared. Significantly more yearling males (67%, n=9) colonized the vacated areas than were present in the redstart population at large (26.8%, n=209). We reject the alternative hypothesis that yearling male redstarts occupy different habitats from older males because of age-related (innate) habitat preferences. Redstarts that colonized the territories made vacant by our removals (i.e., “floaters”) were a behaviorally heterogeneous group of animals. The presence of both yearling and older male floaters indicates that suitable habitat is limiting for this species and that intraspecific competitive interactions are important in habitat distribution, and potentially in population regulation.
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Sherry, T.W., Holmes, R.T. Age-specific social dominance affects habitat use by breeding American redstarts (Setophaga ruticilla): a removal experiment. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 25, 327–333 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00302990
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00302990