Post by Eaglehawk on Dec 14, 2019 11:32:12 GMT
Purple Martin - Progne subis
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Hirundinidae
Genus: Progne
Species: Progne subis (Linnaeus, 1758)
The purple martin (Progne subis) is the largest North American swallow. They are known for their speed and agility in flight, and when approaching their housing, will dive from the sky at great speeds with their wings tucked.
Description and taxonomy
Purple martins are a kind of swallow, of the genus Progne. Like other members of this genus, they are larger than most of the other swallows. The average length from bill to tail is 20 cm (7.9 in). Adults have a slightly forked tail. Adult males are entirely black with glossy steel blue sheen, the only swallow in North America with such coloration. Adult females are dark on top with some steel blue sheen, and lighter underparts. Subadult females look similar to adult females minus the steel blue sheen and browner on the back. Subadult males look very much like females, but solid black feathers emerge on their chest in a blotchy, random pattern as they molt to their adult plumage.
This species was first described by Linnaeus in his Systema naturae in 1758 as Hirundo subis. The current genus name refers to Procne (Πρόκνη), a mythological girl who was turned into a swallow to save her from her husband. She had killed their son to avenge the rape of her sister. The specific subis is Latin and refers to a type of bird that breaks eagles’ eggs; it may have been applied to this species because of its aggression towards birds of prey when it is nesting.
The species of this genus are very closely related, and some view the purple martin, gray-breasted martin, snowy-bellied martin, and southern martin, as a superspecies.
Subspecies
P. s. subis, is the nominate form, with the typical features of the species, breeds in eastern and mid-western North America.
P. s. hesperia of the Mexico and the southwestern United States, is distinguished primarily by its nesting habits.
P. s. arboricola of western mountains is large with females paler on underparts.
Distribution and habitat
Purple martins' breeding range is throughout temperate North America. Their breeding habitat is open areas across eastern North America, and also some locations on the west coast from British Columbia to Mexico.[7] Martins make their nests in cavities, either natural or artificial. In many places, humans put up real or artificial hollow gourds, or houses for martins, especially in the east, where purple martins are almost entirely dependent on such structures. As a result, this subspecies typically breeds in colonies located in proximity to people, even within cities and towns. This makes their distribution patchy, as they are usually absent from areas where no nest sites are provided. Western birds often make use of natural cavities such as old woodpecker holes in trees or saguaro cacti.
The purple martin migrates to the Amazon basin in winter. Its winter range extends into Ecuador[8] but does not seem to ascend far up the Andean foothills.
The first record of this species in Europe was a single bird on Lewis, Scotland, on 5–6 September 2004, and the second was on the Azores on 6 September 2004.
Breeding Migration Nonbreeding
Conservation status
Purple martins suffered a severe population crash in the 20th century widely linked to the release and spread of European starlings in North America. Starlings and house sparrows compete with martins for nest cavities. Where purple martins once gathered by the thousands, by the 1980s they had all but disappeared.
Behavior
Migration
Wintering in South America, purple martins migrate to North America in spring to breed. Spring migration is somewhat staggered, with arrivals in southern areas such as Florida and Texas in January, but showing up in the northern United States in April and in Canada as late as May. Males usually arrive at a site before females.
Fall migration is also staggered, as birds head south when the breeding season is over. Some birds leave as early as July and others stay as late as October. Martins generally migrate over land, through Mexico and Central America. When not breeding, martins form large flocks and roost together in great numbers. This behavior begins just prior to the southern migration and continues on the wintering grounds.
Breeding
Males arrive in breeding sites before females, and establish their territory. A territory can consist of several potential nest sites. After forming a pair, both the male and female inspect available nest sites. This process is complicated by the fact that artificial nest sites could be houses with many rooms, clustered gourds, or single gourds. The nest is made inside the cavity of such artificial structures and retains a somewhat flat appearance. The nest is a structure of primarily three levels: the first level acts as a foundation and is usually made up of twigs, mud, small pebbles and in at least a few reported cases, small river mollusk shells were used; the second level of the nest is made up of grasses, finer smaller twigs; the third level of construction composing the nest, is a small compression usually lined with fresh green leaves where the eggs are laid. Three to six eggs are laid, and the female is the main incubator, with some help from the male. Purple martins are generally known to raise only a single brood. Fledging, when the young leave the nest, occurs at about one month, after which the parents continue to feed the fledgling young.
Diet
Purple martins are aerial insectivores, meaning that they catch insects from the air. The birds are agile hunters and eat a variety of winged insects. Rarely, they will come to the ground to eat insects. They usually fly relatively high, so, contrary to popular opinion, mosquitoes do not form a large part of their diet. Recent research, however, does indicate that the Purple Martin feeds on invasive fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) and that they may make up a significant portion of their diet.
Vocalization
Purple martins are fairly noisy, chirping and making sounds that have been described as chortles, rattles, and croaks. The various calls are said to be "throaty and rich" and can be rendered as tchew-wew, pew pew, choo, cher, zweet and zwrack. The males have a gurgling and guttural courtship song, a dawn song, and even a subsong used at the end of the breeding season. Tapes of purple martin song are sold to attract martins to newly established birdhouses.
A (sorta) good news story about a songbird and climate change
by University of Manitoba
Purple Martin. Credit: Howard Patterson, Flickr
University of Manitoba researchers made a recent discovery that suggests Purple Martins, unlike other long-distance migratory songbirds, show promise of being able to adapt to climate change.
The Purple Martin's (Progne subis) breeding range spans from Florida to northern Alberta, and the smartphone-sized songbird passes our winter months on small islands in the Amazon river, 10,000 kilometers south of Canada's prairies. So far away, they lack all cues on what is happening in northern environments, and that is problematic because as the climate warms, spring arrives earlier and earlier in northern latitudes, meaning the insects these birds depend upon on are hatching earlier—often before these birds arrive, famished and stressed.
If the birds are going to survive in Canada, they need to arrive earlier and then breed without delay. Is natural selection pressure bringing this about?
In their December 2019 Ecosphere paper, "Timing to temperature: egg laying dates respond to temperature and are under stronger selection at northern latitudes," biological sciences masters student and lead author Amanda Shave, her Faculty of Science advising professor Kevin Fraser, UM collaborator Colin Garroway, and Joe Siegrist, leader of the Purple Martin Conservation Association examined 20-years-worth of previously unutilized data collected from citizen scientists, looking at the records of 28,165 nest sites.
"Surprisingly, we found that martins could adjust the timing of their nesting— later in cool springs and earlier in warm springs—which is good news in that they have some flexibility to changing conditions. In the few other long-distance migrants that have been studied they have seemed less flexible in their timing," Shave says.
And indeed, the birds that laid their eggs earlier, fledged more young than those that nested later.
"However, our results may also be an early warning that martins breeding at more northern latitudes are not adjusting fast enough. We show that there was pressure across the range to nest earlier (with earlier springs) and this was the strongest at more northern latitudes, like in Canada," Shave says.
For the birds to do well at northern latitudes, they have to migrate earlier, Shave and Fraser say. It remains unknown if they can do that, but Fraser's lab is testing some bold ideas on this front, which we will report on at a later date.
phys.org/news/2019-12-sorta-good-news-story-songbird.html
Journal Reference:
Amanda Shave et al. Timing to temperature: Egg‐laying dates respond to temperature and are under stronger selection at northern latitudes, Ecosphere (2019). DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.2974
Abstract
Global climate change produces spatially variable patterns of environmental change. This could put migratory species at risk as the synchrony between migration timing and suitable breeding conditions could become mismatched. For migratory birds, whether the timing of egg laying is a plastic trait that can vary in response to environmental change has been sparsely studied across regions and systems and thus remains poorly known. We investigated the effects of temperature variability and climate warming on the breeding phenology of purple martins (Progne subis), a long‐distance migratory songbird, using a 20‐yr data set comprised of 28,165 records of nest timing and fledgling success spanning the entire breeding range (25–54° N). We discovered that purple martins lay eggs earlier in warmer springs and fledge more young when they lay earlier. After controlling for spatial patterns in the data with Moran's eigenvector maps, we found that selection favored earlier breeding in most years, particularly at more northern latitudes. However, selection pressure for earlier breeding did not increase over the 20‐yr period, perhaps owing to high variability in temperature across years. Our results therefore demonstrate plasticity in the timing of egg laying in response to temperature variation and climate change over 20 yr across the range of this widely distributed, long‐distance migrant. Whether these plastic responses are common or sufficiently matched to climate change among other declining migratory songbird species should be further investigated.
esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecs2.2974
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Hirundinidae
Genus: Progne
Species: Progne subis (Linnaeus, 1758)
The purple martin (Progne subis) is the largest North American swallow. They are known for their speed and agility in flight, and when approaching their housing, will dive from the sky at great speeds with their wings tucked.
Description and taxonomy
Purple martins are a kind of swallow, of the genus Progne. Like other members of this genus, they are larger than most of the other swallows. The average length from bill to tail is 20 cm (7.9 in). Adults have a slightly forked tail. Adult males are entirely black with glossy steel blue sheen, the only swallow in North America with such coloration. Adult females are dark on top with some steel blue sheen, and lighter underparts. Subadult females look similar to adult females minus the steel blue sheen and browner on the back. Subadult males look very much like females, but solid black feathers emerge on their chest in a blotchy, random pattern as they molt to their adult plumage.
This species was first described by Linnaeus in his Systema naturae in 1758 as Hirundo subis. The current genus name refers to Procne (Πρόκνη), a mythological girl who was turned into a swallow to save her from her husband. She had killed their son to avenge the rape of her sister. The specific subis is Latin and refers to a type of bird that breaks eagles’ eggs; it may have been applied to this species because of its aggression towards birds of prey when it is nesting.
The species of this genus are very closely related, and some view the purple martin, gray-breasted martin, snowy-bellied martin, and southern martin, as a superspecies.
Subspecies
P. s. subis, is the nominate form, with the typical features of the species, breeds in eastern and mid-western North America.
P. s. hesperia of the Mexico and the southwestern United States, is distinguished primarily by its nesting habits.
P. s. arboricola of western mountains is large with females paler on underparts.
Distribution and habitat
Purple martins' breeding range is throughout temperate North America. Their breeding habitat is open areas across eastern North America, and also some locations on the west coast from British Columbia to Mexico.[7] Martins make their nests in cavities, either natural or artificial. In many places, humans put up real or artificial hollow gourds, or houses for martins, especially in the east, where purple martins are almost entirely dependent on such structures. As a result, this subspecies typically breeds in colonies located in proximity to people, even within cities and towns. This makes their distribution patchy, as they are usually absent from areas where no nest sites are provided. Western birds often make use of natural cavities such as old woodpecker holes in trees or saguaro cacti.
The purple martin migrates to the Amazon basin in winter. Its winter range extends into Ecuador[8] but does not seem to ascend far up the Andean foothills.
The first record of this species in Europe was a single bird on Lewis, Scotland, on 5–6 September 2004, and the second was on the Azores on 6 September 2004.
Breeding Migration Nonbreeding
Conservation status
Purple martins suffered a severe population crash in the 20th century widely linked to the release and spread of European starlings in North America. Starlings and house sparrows compete with martins for nest cavities. Where purple martins once gathered by the thousands, by the 1980s they had all but disappeared.
Behavior
Migration
Wintering in South America, purple martins migrate to North America in spring to breed. Spring migration is somewhat staggered, with arrivals in southern areas such as Florida and Texas in January, but showing up in the northern United States in April and in Canada as late as May. Males usually arrive at a site before females.
Fall migration is also staggered, as birds head south when the breeding season is over. Some birds leave as early as July and others stay as late as October. Martins generally migrate over land, through Mexico and Central America. When not breeding, martins form large flocks and roost together in great numbers. This behavior begins just prior to the southern migration and continues on the wintering grounds.
Breeding
Males arrive in breeding sites before females, and establish their territory. A territory can consist of several potential nest sites. After forming a pair, both the male and female inspect available nest sites. This process is complicated by the fact that artificial nest sites could be houses with many rooms, clustered gourds, or single gourds. The nest is made inside the cavity of such artificial structures and retains a somewhat flat appearance. The nest is a structure of primarily three levels: the first level acts as a foundation and is usually made up of twigs, mud, small pebbles and in at least a few reported cases, small river mollusk shells were used; the second level of the nest is made up of grasses, finer smaller twigs; the third level of construction composing the nest, is a small compression usually lined with fresh green leaves where the eggs are laid. Three to six eggs are laid, and the female is the main incubator, with some help from the male. Purple martins are generally known to raise only a single brood. Fledging, when the young leave the nest, occurs at about one month, after which the parents continue to feed the fledgling young.
Diet
Purple martins are aerial insectivores, meaning that they catch insects from the air. The birds are agile hunters and eat a variety of winged insects. Rarely, they will come to the ground to eat insects. They usually fly relatively high, so, contrary to popular opinion, mosquitoes do not form a large part of their diet. Recent research, however, does indicate that the Purple Martin feeds on invasive fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) and that they may make up a significant portion of their diet.
Vocalization
Purple martins are fairly noisy, chirping and making sounds that have been described as chortles, rattles, and croaks. The various calls are said to be "throaty and rich" and can be rendered as tchew-wew, pew pew, choo, cher, zweet and zwrack. The males have a gurgling and guttural courtship song, a dawn song, and even a subsong used at the end of the breeding season. Tapes of purple martin song are sold to attract martins to newly established birdhouses.
A (sorta) good news story about a songbird and climate change
by University of Manitoba
Purple Martin. Credit: Howard Patterson, Flickr
University of Manitoba researchers made a recent discovery that suggests Purple Martins, unlike other long-distance migratory songbirds, show promise of being able to adapt to climate change.
The Purple Martin's (Progne subis) breeding range spans from Florida to northern Alberta, and the smartphone-sized songbird passes our winter months on small islands in the Amazon river, 10,000 kilometers south of Canada's prairies. So far away, they lack all cues on what is happening in northern environments, and that is problematic because as the climate warms, spring arrives earlier and earlier in northern latitudes, meaning the insects these birds depend upon on are hatching earlier—often before these birds arrive, famished and stressed.
If the birds are going to survive in Canada, they need to arrive earlier and then breed without delay. Is natural selection pressure bringing this about?
In their December 2019 Ecosphere paper, "Timing to temperature: egg laying dates respond to temperature and are under stronger selection at northern latitudes," biological sciences masters student and lead author Amanda Shave, her Faculty of Science advising professor Kevin Fraser, UM collaborator Colin Garroway, and Joe Siegrist, leader of the Purple Martin Conservation Association examined 20-years-worth of previously unutilized data collected from citizen scientists, looking at the records of 28,165 nest sites.
"Surprisingly, we found that martins could adjust the timing of their nesting— later in cool springs and earlier in warm springs—which is good news in that they have some flexibility to changing conditions. In the few other long-distance migrants that have been studied they have seemed less flexible in their timing," Shave says.
And indeed, the birds that laid their eggs earlier, fledged more young than those that nested later.
"However, our results may also be an early warning that martins breeding at more northern latitudes are not adjusting fast enough. We show that there was pressure across the range to nest earlier (with earlier springs) and this was the strongest at more northern latitudes, like in Canada," Shave says.
For the birds to do well at northern latitudes, they have to migrate earlier, Shave and Fraser say. It remains unknown if they can do that, but Fraser's lab is testing some bold ideas on this front, which we will report on at a later date.
phys.org/news/2019-12-sorta-good-news-story-songbird.html
Journal Reference:
Amanda Shave et al. Timing to temperature: Egg‐laying dates respond to temperature and are under stronger selection at northern latitudes, Ecosphere (2019). DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.2974
Abstract
Global climate change produces spatially variable patterns of environmental change. This could put migratory species at risk as the synchrony between migration timing and suitable breeding conditions could become mismatched. For migratory birds, whether the timing of egg laying is a plastic trait that can vary in response to environmental change has been sparsely studied across regions and systems and thus remains poorly known. We investigated the effects of temperature variability and climate warming on the breeding phenology of purple martins (Progne subis), a long‐distance migratory songbird, using a 20‐yr data set comprised of 28,165 records of nest timing and fledgling success spanning the entire breeding range (25–54° N). We discovered that purple martins lay eggs earlier in warmer springs and fledge more young when they lay earlier. After controlling for spatial patterns in the data with Moran's eigenvector maps, we found that selection favored earlier breeding in most years, particularly at more northern latitudes. However, selection pressure for earlier breeding did not increase over the 20‐yr period, perhaps owing to high variability in temperature across years. Our results therefore demonstrate plasticity in the timing of egg laying in response to temperature variation and climate change over 20 yr across the range of this widely distributed, long‐distance migrant. Whether these plastic responses are common or sufficiently matched to climate change among other declining migratory songbird species should be further investigated.
esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecs2.2974