Population links between an insectivorous bird and moths disentangled through national‐scale monitoring data

Evans, L. C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8649-0589, Burgess, M. D., Potts, S. G. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2045-980X, Kunin, W. E. and Oliver, T. H. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4169-7313 (2024) Population links between an insectivorous bird and moths disentangled through national‐scale monitoring data. Ecology Letters, 27 (1). e14362. ISSN 1461-023X doi: 10.1111/ele.14362

Abstract/Summary

Insects are key components of food chains, and monitoring data provides new opportunities to identify trophic relationships at broad spatial and temporal scales. Here, combining two monitoring datasets from Great Britain, we reveal how the population dynamics of the blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus are inf luenced by the abundance of moths – a core component of their breeding diet. We find that years with increased population growth for blue tits correlate strongly with high moth abundance, but population growth in moths and birds is less well correlated; suggesting moth abundance directly affects bird population change. Next, we identify moths that are important components of blue tit diet, recovering associations to species previously identified as key food sources such as the winter moth Operoptera brumata. Our work provides new evidence that insect abundance impacts bird population dynamics in natural communities and provides insight into spatial diet turnover at a national-scale.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/114836
Identification Number/DOI	10.1111/ele.14362
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Biological Sciences > Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Life Sciences > School of Agriculture, Policy and Development > Department of Sustainable Land Management > Centre for Agri-environmental Research (CAER)
Publisher	Wiley
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