| aspergillosis in a north island robin (petroica longipes). | a 3-year-old female north island robin (petroica longipes) was found dead on tiritiri matangi island during the breeding season. | 2005 | 16317449 |
| an integrated approach for predicting fates of reintroductions with demographic data from multiple populations. | we devised a novel approach to model reintroduced populations whereby demographic data collected from multiple sites are integrated into a bayesian hierarchical model. integrating data from multiple reintroductions allows more precise population-growth projections to be made, especially for populations for which data are sparse, and allows projections that account for random site-to-site variation to be made before new reintroductions are attempted. we used data from reintroductions of the north ... | 2011 | 22098341 |
| simulating retention of rare alleles in small populations to assess management options for species with different life histories. | preserving allelic diversity is important because it provides the capacity for adaptation and thus enables long-term population viability. allele retention is difficult to predict in animals with overlapping generations, so we used a new computer model to simulate retention of rare alleles in small populations of 3 species with contrasting life-history traits: north island brown kiwi (apteryx mantelli; monogamous, long-lived), north island robins (petroica longipes; monogamous, short-lived), and ... | 2013 | 23330669 |
| relative quantity judgments between discrete spatial arrays by chimpanzees (pan troglodytes) and new zealand robins (petroica longipes). | quantity discrimination for items spread across spatial arrays was investigated in chimpanzees (pan troglodytes) and north island new zealand robins (petroica longipes), with the aim of examining the role of spatial separation on the ability of these 2 species to sum and compare nonvisible quantities which are both temporally and spatially separated, and to assess the likely mechanism supporting such summation performance. birds and chimpanzees compared 2 sets of discrete quantities of items tha ... | 2014 | 24749501 |
| coccidia species in endemic and native new zealand passerines. | new zealand native passerines are hosts to a large variety of gastrointestinal parasites, including coccidia. coccidian parasites are generally host-specific, obligate intracellular protozoan parasites. in passerine birds, members of the genus isospora are most common. under natural conditions, these parasites seldom pose a threat, but stressors such as quarantine for translocation, overcrowding, or habitat changes may cause an infection outbreak that can severely affect wild populations. althou ... | 2013 | 23468142 |
| male new zealand robins (petroica longipes) cater to their mate's desire when sharing food in the wild. | in many species that have bi-parental care, food-sharing males provide vital nutritional resources to their mates during reproduction. however, it is currently unknown whether females can signal specific desires to their mates, or if males can cater to female desire in the wild. here we investigate whether and how wild male north island robins (petroica longipes) respond to changes in their mates' desires and nutritional need when sharing food. we demonstrate that wild female robins' desire for ... | 2017 | 28420866 |
| reasoning about "capability": wild robins respond to limb visibility in humans. | little comparative work has focused on what nonhumans understand about what physical acts others are capable of performing, and none has yet done so in the wild, or within a competitive framework. this study shows that north island robins visually attend to human limbs in the context of determining who to steal food from. we presented 24 wild north island robins (petroica longipes) with two experimenters. robins could choose to steal a mealworm from one of two experimenters: one whose limbs were ... | 2016 | 27455334 |
| memory for multiple cache locations and prey quantities in a food-hoarding songbird. | most animals can discriminate between pairs of numbers that are each less than four without training. however, north island robins (petroica longipes), a food-hoarding songbird endemic to new zealand, can discriminate between quantities of items as high as eight without training. here we investigate whether robins are capable of other complex quantity discrimination tasks. we test whether their ability to discriminate between small quantities declines with (1) the number of cache sites containin ... | 2012 | 23293622 |
| adaptive harvesting of source populations for translocation: a case study with new zealand robins. | reintroductions are conducted frequently throughout the world, and some source populations are harvested repeatedly to provide animals for translocation. the responses of these source populations to harvest should be monitored, and the resulting data used to refine population models will guide management. after north island robins ( petroica longipes) were reintroduced to tiritiri matangi, new zealand, in 1992, the population became a source for robins for additional reintroductions in the regio ... | 2007 | 17298517 |
| use of a real-time pcr to explore the intensity of plasmodium spp. infections in native, endemic and introduced new zealand birds. | avian malaria, caused by plasmodium spp., is an emerging disease in new zealand (nz). to detect plasmodium spp. infection and quantify parasite load in nz birds, a real-time polymerase chain reaction (pcr) (qpcr) protocol was used and compared with a nested pcr (npcr) assay. a total of 202 blood samples from 14 bird species with known npcr results were tested. the qpcr prevalences for introduced, native and endemic species groups were 70, 11 and 21%, respectively, with a sensitivity and specific ... | 2017 | 28691648 |
| to be so bold: boldness is repeatable and related to within individual behavioural variability in north island robins. | behavioural research traditionally focusses on the mean responses of a group of individuals rather than variation in behaviour around the mean or among individuals. however, examining the variation in behaviour among and within individuals may also yield important insights into the evolution and maintenance of behaviour. repeatability is the most commonly used measure of variability among individuals in behavioural research. however, there are other forms of variation within populations that hav ... | 2017 | 28454917 |
| testing cognition in the wild: factors affecting performance and individual consistency in two measures of avian cognition. | developing cognitive tasks to reliably quantify individual differences in cognitive ability is critical to advance our understanding of the fitness consequences of cognition in the wild. several factors may influence individual performance in a cognitive task, with some being unrelated to the cognitive ability that is the target of the test. it is therefore essential to assess how extraneous factors may affect task performance, particularly for those tasks that are frequently used to quantify in ... | 2017 | 27288883 |
| wild robins (petroica longipes) respond to human gaze. | gaze following and awareness of attentional cues are hallmarks of human and non-human social intelligence. here, we show that the north island robin (petroica longipes), a food-hoarding songbird endemic to new zealand, responds to human eyes. robins were presented with six different conditions, in which two human experimenters altered the orientation or visibility of their body, head or eyes in relation to mealworm prey. one experimenter had visual access to the prey, and the second experimenter ... | 2014 | 24770885 |
| strategic rat control for restoring populations of native species in forest fragments. | forest fragments have biodiversity value that may be enhanced through management such as control of non-native predators. however, such efforts may be ineffective, and research is needed to ensure that predator control is done strategically. we used bayesian hierarchical modeling to estimate fragment-specific effects of experimental rat control on a native species targeted for recovery in a new zealand pastoral landscape. the experiment was a modified baci (before-after-control-impact) design co ... | 2014 | 24617847 |
| the ability of north island robins to discriminate between humans is related to their behavioural type. | animals are able to learn to identify persistent threats to themselves and their offspring. for example, birds are able to quickly learn to discriminate between humans that have previously threatened their nests from humans with whom they have had no prior experience. however, no study has yet examined whether a bird's ability to discriminate between humans is related to the bird's underlying behavioural type. in this study, we examined whether there were differences among north island (ni) robi ... | 2013 | 23700482 |
| large quantity discrimination by north island robins (petroica longipes). | while numerosity-representation and enumeration of different numbers of objects-and quantity discrimination in particular have been studied in a wide range of species, very little is known about the numerical abilities of animals in the wild. this study examined spontaneous relative quantity judgments (rqjs) by wild north island robins (petroica longipes) of new zealand. in experiment 1, robins were tested on a range of numerical values of up to 14 versus 16 items, which were sequentially presen ... | 2012 | 22825034 |
| delayed plumage maturation increases overwinter survival in north island robins. | many bird species show delayed plumage maturation (dpm), retaining sub-adult plumage until after their first breeding season. most explanations assume that dpm increases fitness over the breeding season. however, unless birds undergo a full moult before breeding, dpm could also be an adaptation to increase survival over the previous winter. the winter adaptation hypothesis has never been tested owing to the difficulty of measuring overwinter survival. we experimentally tested this hypothesis in ... | 2004 | 15475331 |
| predicting reintroduction outcomes for highly vulnerable species that do not currently coexist with their key threats. | predicting reintroduction outcomes before populations are released is inherently challenging. it becomes even more difficult when the species being considered for reintroduction no longer coexists with the key threats limiting its distribution. however, data from other species facing the same threats can be used to make predictions under these circumstances. we used an integrated bayesian modeling approach to predict growth of a reintroduced population at a range of predator densities when no da ... | 2018 | 29455467 |
| memory performance influences male reproductive success in a wild bird. | despite decades of comparative research, how selection shapes the evolution of cognitive traits remains poorly understood [1-3]. several lines of evidence suggest that natural selection acts on spatial memory in food-caching species [3-6]. however, a link between reproductive fitness and spatial memory ability has yet to be demonstrated in any caching species [1, 3, 6]. here, we show that memory performance influences reproductive success differentially for males and females in a caching songbir ... | 2019 | 31006565 |
| the ontogeny of food-caching behaviour in new zealand robins (petroica longipes). | hoarding or caching behaviour is a widely-used paradigm for examining a range of cognitive processes in birds, such as social cognition and spatial memory. however, much is still unknown about how caching develops in young birds, especially in the wild. studying the ontogeny of caching in the wild will help researchers to identify the mechanisms that shape this advantageous foraging strategy. we examined the ontogeny of food caching behaviour in a wild new zealand passerine, the north island rob ... | 2018 | 29522839 |
| using long-term data for a reintroduced population to empirically estimate future consequences of inbreeding. | inbreeding depression is an important long-term threat to reintroduced populations. however, the strength of inbreeding depression is difficult to estimate in wild populations, both because pedigree data are inevitably incomplete and because good data are needed on survival and reproduction. predicting future population consequences is especially difficult because this also requires projecting future inbreeding levels and their impacts on long-term population dynamics which are subject to many u ... | 2020 | 32997349 |
| combining data-derived priors with postrelease monitoring data to predict persistence of reintroduced populations. | monitoring is an essential part of reintroduction programs, but many years of data may be needed to obtain reliable population projections. this duration can potentially be reduced by incorporating prior information on expected vital rates (survival and fecundity) when making inferences from monitoring data. the prior distributions for these parameters can be derived from data for previous reintroductions, but it is important to account for site-to-site variation. we evaluated whether such infor ... | 2018 | 29988454 |