Skip to main content
Dryad

Predator and destructor species of artificial bird nests in La Paz, Bolivia

Data files

Dec 12, 2022 version files 11.35 KB

Abstract

Urbanization alters the composition of biological communities and, therefore, ecological processes such as predation and destruction of bird nests. The identification of predator and destructor species is useful for designing research for the understanding of the effects of urbanization on these ecological processes. In this study, we identify the diurnal predator and destructor species of artificial bird nests in urban and peri-urban sites of the metropolitan region of La Paz, Bolivia, using webcams. The House Wren (Troglodytes aedon) was the only nest-destroying species, recorded in both urban and peri-urban environments. This species affected the nests by extracting material. Besides a predation event by the Andean Caracara (Phalcoboenus megalopterus) in a peri-urban site and one by the Domestic Cat (Felis silvestris catus) in an urban site, the species with the highest incidence of nest predation in both urban and peri-urban sites was the Chiguanco Thrush (Turdus chiguanco). A behavior that had not been previously reported for this species, and is very rare for the genus. In this report, we present two films of destruction events by the House Wren and two films of eggs predation events by the Chiguanco Thrush.