Abstract
Elevation often becomes an important component in the breeding site selection of forest birds because it may affect individual fitness. To understand how the threatened fairy pitta (Pitta nympha Temminck & Schlegel) selects a particular elevation for breeding and whether the pitta achieves better reproductive performance in its preferred elevation, we surveyed for the presence of breeding pittas and recorded their reproductive performances at six different elevation zones on Mount Halla in Jeju Island, Korea. We expected that preference for breeding sites and reproductive performance would gradually decrease with increasing elevation. In fact, 73 presence and 78 absence records indicated no preference for breeding sites at elevations lower than 400 m. However, forest habitats between 400 and 600 m were strongly preferred, while locations above 800 m were clearly avoided. The egg-laying date was significantly earlier at lower elevations, but other measures of reproductive performance did not differ between the preferred and non-preferred elevations. Contrary to our expectations, this indicates that there was no clear advantage to a pitta’s reproductive performance based on elevation preference. Our findings suggest that the inherent optimal selection for the best reproductive outcomes was not a key driving factor for the pattern of elevation preference observed, and that the pitta’s preference might be a response to external and environmental factors such as climate conditions. The reduction of anthropogenic impacts by mitigating human–pitta conflicts at lower elevations, such as accidental non-reproductive mortality and forest loss, would help enhance the conservation of the fairy pitta on Jeju Island, a stronghold of this threatened species in Korea.
Highlights
The habitat selection of birds, especially breeding site selection, is often regarded as a non-random process of natural selection because it may affect individual fitness [1,2]
Manly’s index with Bonferroni adjustment can provide relative selection values that come with conservative confidence intervals for each elevation zone; we provide here, the standardized selection ratios to interpret the unadjusted selection ratios in asymmetrical scales [25]
We confirmed the occurrence of breeding fairy pittas at 73 out of 151 survey sites (67 of 133 from 2002 to 2011 and six of 18 in 2017), and the breeding pairs occurred in the potential habitats between 50 and 800 m on Jeju Island, Korea
Summary
The habitat selection of birds, especially breeding site selection, is often regarded as a non-random process of natural selection because it may affect individual fitness [1,2]. Higher elevation is often characterized by lower temperatures, delayed plant phenology, unstable climates, reduced food supply and habitat quality, and lower nest site availability, which affect many aspects of avian ecology [5,6,7]. The general biology of breeding fairy pittas has been described [9,10,11,12,13], detailed information is still limited due to its elusive behavior at breeding sites, which are often associated with dense forests and forested valleys [12,13]
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