RT Journal Article
T1 The road to opportunities : landscape change promotes body-size divergence in a highly mobile species
A1 Camacho, Carlos
A1 Sáez Gómez, Pedro
A1 Sánchez, Sonia
A1 Palacios, Sebastián
A1 Molina, Carlos
A1 Potti, Jaime
AB Landscape change provides a suitable framework for investigating population-level responses tonovel ecological pressures. However, relatively little attention has been paid to examine the potentialinfluence of landscape change on the geographic scale of population differentiation. Here, wetested for morphological differentiation of red-necked nightjars Caprimulgus ruficollis breeding ina managed property and a natural reserve situated less than 10km apart. At both sites, we also estimatedsite fidelity over 5 years and quantified the potential foraging opportunities for nightjars.Breeding birds in the managed habitat were significantly larger in size—as indexed by keellength—than those in the natural one. However, there were no significant differences in wing or taillength. Immigration from neighboring areas was almost negligible and, furthermore, no individual(out of 1130 captures overall) exchanged habitats between years, indicating strong site fidelity.Food supply for nightjars was equally abundant in both habitats, but the availability of foragingsites was remarkably higher in the managed property. As a result, nightjars—particularly fledglings—in the latter habitat benefited from increased foraging opportunities in relation to those inthe natural site. It seems likely that the fine-scale variation in nightjar morphology reflects a phenotypicresponse to unequal local conditions, since non-random dispersal or differential mortalityhad been determined not to be influential. High site fidelity appears to contribute to the maintenanceof body-size differences between the two habitats. Results from this nightjar population highlightthe potential of human-induced landscape change to promote population-level responses atexceedingly small geographic scales.
PB Oxford University Press
SN 1674-5507
SN 2396-9814 (electrónico)
YR 2016
FD 2016
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10272/11741
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10272/11741
LA eng
NO Camacho, C., Sáez Gómez, P., Sánchez, S., Palacios, S., Molina, C., Potti, J.: "The road to opportunities : landscape change promotes body-size divergence in a highly mobile species". Current Zoology. Vol. 62, n. 1, págs. 7-14, (2016). DOI: 10.1093/cz/zov008
NO CC was supported by the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centers of Excellenceof  the  Spanish  Ministry  of  Economy  and  Competitiveness   (SVP-2013-067686).  Nightjars  were  captured  and  marked  under  license  from  theAndalusian  Authority  for  Wildlife  Protection  (permit  numbers:  4358/1064/MDCG and 762/MDCG).
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 30 may 2026