Beak shape and nest material use in birds

Catherine Sheard; Sally E Street; Caitlin Evans; Kevin N Lala; Susan D Healy; Shoko Sugasawa

doi:10.1098/rstb.2022.0147

Beak shape and nest material use in birds

Catherine Sheard^*, Sally E Street, Caitlin Evans, Kevin N Lala, Susan D Healy, Shoko Sugasawa^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The evolution of behaviour can both influence, and be influenced by, morphology. Recent advances in methods and data availability have facilitated broad-scale investigations of physical form and behavioural function in many contexts, but the relationship between animal morphology and object manipulation-particularly objects used in construction-remains largely unknown. Here, we employ a new global database of nest materials used by 5924 species of birds together with phylogenetically informed random forest models to evaluate the link between beak shape and these nest-building materials. We find that beak morphology, together with species diet and access to materials, can predict nest-material use above chance and with high accuracy (68-97%). Much of this relationship, however, is driven by phylogenetic signal and sampling biases. We therefore conclude that while variation in nest material use is linked with that of beak shape across bird species, these correlations are modulated by the ecological context and evolutionary history of these species.

Original language	English
Article number	20220147
Number of pages	8
Journal	Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Volume	378
Issue number	1884
Early online date	10 Jul 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0147
Publication status	Published - 28 Aug 2023

Keywords

Morphology
Behaviour
Bird nests
Construction
Object manipulation
Form-function coevolution

Access to Document

10.1098/rstb.2022.0147Licence: CC BY

Sheard_2023_PTB_Beak-shape_CC
Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Final published version, 1.23 MBLicence: CC BY

Object manipulation without hands: Object manipulation without hands: kinematics and evolution of nest building by birds
Sugasawa, S. (PI)
BBSRC
20/05/19 → 19/05/22
Project: Fellowship
Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Putting the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis to the Test
Lala, K. (PI)
1/09/16 → 31/05/19
Project: Standard

Data from Beak shape and nest material use in birds
Sheard, C. (Creator), Street, S. E. (Creator), Evans, C. (Creator), Lala, K. N. (Creator), Healy, S. D. (Creator) & Sugasawa, S. (Creator), The Royal Society, 2023
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.23283373.v1
Dataset

Cite this

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title = "Beak shape and nest material use in birds",

abstract = "The evolution of behaviour can both influence, and be influenced by, morphology. Recent advances in methods and data availability have facilitated broad-scale investigations of physical form and behavioural function in many contexts, but the relationship between animal morphology and object manipulation-particularly objects used in construction-remains largely unknown. Here, we employ a new global database of nest materials used by 5924 species of birds together with phylogenetically informed random forest models to evaluate the link between beak shape and these nest-building materials. We find that beak morphology, together with species diet and access to materials, can predict nest-material use above chance and with high accuracy (68-97%). Much of this relationship, however, is driven by phylogenetic signal and sampling biases. We therefore conclude that while variation in nest material use is linked with that of beak shape across bird species, these correlations are modulated by the ecological context and evolutionary history of these species.",

keywords = "Morphology, Behaviour, Bird nests, Construction, Object manipulation, Form-function coevolution",

author = "Catherine Sheard and Street, {Sally E} and Caitlin Evans and Lala, {Kevin N} and Healy, {Susan D} and Shoko Sugasawa",

note = "Funding: This work was supported by a BBSRC Discovery Fellowship (grant no. BB/S01019X/1); the John Templeton Foundation (grant no. 60501); and the European Research Council (grant no. 788203).",

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AU - Street, Sally E

AU - Evans, Caitlin

AU - Lala, Kevin N

AU - Healy, Susan D

AU - Sugasawa, Shoko

N1 - Funding: This work was supported by a BBSRC Discovery Fellowship (grant no. BB/S01019X/1); the John Templeton Foundation (grant no. 60501); and the European Research Council (grant no. 788203).

PY - 2023/8/28

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N2 - The evolution of behaviour can both influence, and be influenced by, morphology. Recent advances in methods and data availability have facilitated broad-scale investigations of physical form and behavioural function in many contexts, but the relationship between animal morphology and object manipulation-particularly objects used in construction-remains largely unknown. Here, we employ a new global database of nest materials used by 5924 species of birds together with phylogenetically informed random forest models to evaluate the link between beak shape and these nest-building materials. We find that beak morphology, together with species diet and access to materials, can predict nest-material use above chance and with high accuracy (68-97%). Much of this relationship, however, is driven by phylogenetic signal and sampling biases. We therefore conclude that while variation in nest material use is linked with that of beak shape across bird species, these correlations are modulated by the ecological context and evolutionary history of these species.

AB - The evolution of behaviour can both influence, and be influenced by, morphology. Recent advances in methods and data availability have facilitated broad-scale investigations of physical form and behavioural function in many contexts, but the relationship between animal morphology and object manipulation-particularly objects used in construction-remains largely unknown. Here, we employ a new global database of nest materials used by 5924 species of birds together with phylogenetically informed random forest models to evaluate the link between beak shape and these nest-building materials. We find that beak morphology, together with species diet and access to materials, can predict nest-material use above chance and with high accuracy (68-97%). Much of this relationship, however, is driven by phylogenetic signal and sampling biases. We therefore conclude that while variation in nest material use is linked with that of beak shape across bird species, these correlations are modulated by the ecological context and evolutionary history of these species.

KW - Morphology

KW - Behaviour

KW - Bird nests

KW - Construction

KW - Object manipulation

KW - Form-function coevolution

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DO - 10.1098/rstb.2022.0147

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JO - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

JF - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

IS - 1884

M1 - 20220147

ER -

Beak shape and nest material use in birds

Abstract

Keywords

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Projects

Object manipulation without hands: Object manipulation without hands: kinematics and evolution of nest building by birds

Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Putting the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis to the Test

Datasets

Data from Beak shape and nest material use in birds

Cite this