Landscape structure and site characteristics influence whether the northern house martin Delichon urbicum occupies artificial nests
Data files
Sep 04, 2024 version files 610.24 KB
Abstract
Artificial nest sites can support populations of endangered species when they are correctly installed. Here we analysed the characteristics and conditions that determined whether the northern house martin Delichon urbicum occupied more than 300 artificial nests around the city of Münster, Germany. We found that artificial nest occupation rates were influenced by various environmental and temporal factors. Positive influences included longer time since installation and, to a lesser extent, the number of artificial nests at the same site. Negative impacts were observed from higher proportions of sealed surface cover in the surrounding area and, to a lesser extent, southward exposure. The distance to the nearest water body and the number of occupied natural nests showed no significant effect. We compared our results with descriptive evidence from the grey literature and published reports, and we give recommendations for installing artificial house martin nests for conservation practitioners. Future studies should also investigate the potential negative effects of “dirt boards” below the nests and of gaps between the roof and the artificial nests.
README: Landscape structure and site characteristics influence whether the northern house martin Delichon urbicum occupies artificial nests
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0gb5mkm9h
Description of the data and file structure
Artificial nest sites can support populations of endangered species when they are correctly installed. Here we analysed the characteristics and conditions that determined whether the northern house martin occupied artificial nests.
Files and variables
File: Mehlschwalben_neu.csv
Description: Table for the analyis in R.
Empty rows in the CSV file are not missing values but were added for importing into R.
Variables
- ID: Letter indicates location. Number means which nest at this location.
- Besetzt: 0 = not occupied, 1 = occupied
- Anzahl: How many artificial nests are in one place
- Gebaeudetyp: Building type, H= residental houses, S= sheds where livestock were kept, T= barns, TU= swallow towers, W= residental blocks
- Fassadentyp: Façade type, H= wooden facades, B= brick facades, R= rough facades
- Exposition: Exposition in degrees°
- NNester : 0= no natural nests existing, 1= natural nests existing in the surrounding
- Kotbrett: 0= dirt board not present, 1= dirt board present
- aVoegel: 0= no other birds are using it, 1= other birds than house martins are using artifical nest
- Zeitpunkt: Time since installation, 0 = before the breeding season of the same year, 1 = before the breeding season of the year before, and so on
- Tierhaltung: Presence of livestock (cows, horses, sheep, chickens or pigs), 0= no presence, 1= presence of livestock
- Gewaesser: Distance to water bodies in %, 100%= is the furthest away
- Gewaesser.1: Distance to water bodies in meter.
- Versiegelt: Degree of sealing, 100%= everything is sealed
- Standort: Letter indicates location.
- Dachluecke: Gap between nest and roof, 0= no gap, 1= a gap was present between the nest and the roof
- Besetzte.Nnester: Occupied natural nests, 0= no occupied natural nests in the surrounding, 1= occupied natural nests present
- Besetzte Natuerliche Nester Anzahl: Number of occupied natural nests per location.
- Anzahl alle natuerlichen Nester (mit herabgefallenen Nestern): Number of all natural nests with fallen nests.
- Anzahl intakten natuerliche Nester: Number of intact natural nests.
File: model_brms.R
Description: Bayesian multilevel model and plot generation.
File: start.R
Description: Loading and preparing the data for analysis.
File: coefficients_plot_new.png
Description: Estimated coefficients for each predictor variable. Black points represent the mean for each variable. The thin black line is the 95 % credible interval, and the thick black line is the 80 % credible interval. If the 95 % credible interval lies completely to the left of 0 (e.g., for sealed surface cover), this indicates a strong negative effect of the variable on the occupancy of an artificial nest. The coloured area represents the full posterior distribution of the coefficient estimates for each variable.
File: violins.png
Description: Violin plots showing the density of the six independent variables for the occupancy of artificial nests.
Code/software
Excel, R
library(brms)
library(performance)
library(ggplot2)
library(viridis)
library(dplyr)
library(tidybayes)
Access information
Other publicly accessible locations of the data: