Island size, isolation, or interspecific competition? The breeding distribution of the Parus guild in the Danish archipelago

Abstract

The Parus guild (Parus spp., Sitta, Certhia, and Regulus) is distributed as a complex mosaic within the Danish archipelago, with from one to eight species on different islands. We assessed the roles of island isolation, island size, and interspecific competition in determining the breeding species compositions of this guild on 53 Danish islands. Small, isolated islands supported fewer species than larger, nearshore islands. These effects, however, were largely restricted to a few sedentary species (P. cristatus, P. palustris, S. europaea) that are known to be poor dispersers/colonizers. In some cases, these three species were also absent from large, nearshore islands with suitable habitat, suggesting that habitat availability was not always responsible for the absence of a species. Monte Carlo simulations suggested that the pattern of species presence/absence was not a result of interspecific interactions. Thus, although a number of previous studies have documented interspecific competition among members of the Parus guild, our results suggest that such competition is not responsible for the unusual pattern of species distribution within the Danish archipelago.