shorebird incubation

Comparing incubation rhythms across shorebirds.

I am leading a comparative project bringing together shorebirdologists from various parts of the Globe to explore the diversity of shorebird incubation rhythms.

First, we collected data on biparentally incubating shorebirds and showed unexpected between- and within-species diversity of incubation rhythms and that latitudinal cline in diel-light changes and anti-predation strategy of the species shape the rhythms (see the paper and the blog-post on how this came to be).

Left - map depicts study sites color-coded according to genera. Middle - example of incubation rhythms. Right - Evolutionary change in a period of a rhythm and in a median incubation bout length.

Second, we are further exploring the data on biparental shorebirds to reveal between-sex differences as well as within-pair variability in incubation.

Preliminary results show that across individuals and species incubation bouts of ♀️ and ♂️ largely positively correlate.

Third, we are collecting data on uniparentally incubating shorebirds to reveal the variability of uniparental incubation rhythms and explore how such rhythms are constrained.

The map depicts sites where data on given species (color) were collected.