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The role of ultraviolet light in communication of birds
Šulc, Michal ; Sedláček, Ondřej (advisor) ; Albrecht, Tomáš (referee)
Recently, it has been found that the visual system of birds and humans differ remarkably, especially in the ability to perceive ultraviolet radiation. This component of the spectrum significantly affects various types of the birds' behaviour. UV reflection may be an indicator of the qualities of males, i.e. females often prefer individuals with expressive UV ornamentation. Likewise, parents can distribute the delivered food unevenly among their nestlings, depending on the nestlings' reflection of ultraviolet radiation. Recent studies also showed that the hosts of brood parasites may use UV spectrum as a key for recognizing the parasitic eggs from their own. The aim of my bachelor thesis is to review the current knowledge of the influence of UV radiation on sexual selection of birds, the interaction between parents and offspring and interactions between brood parasites and their hosts.
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The effect of urbanization on life-history strategies in birds
Houšková, Karolína ; Sedláček, Ondřej (advisor) ; Poláková, Simona (referee)
Urbanisation process is recently a wide-spread process that causes high-impact environmental transformation. Habitats affected by urbanization tend to change substantially and ongoing changes influence organisms living in this environment. Urban environment modifies many abiotic conditions (e.g. temperature, artificial light and noise) and biotic factors (e.g. food supply, parasite prevalence, predation pressure) in comparison to natural habitats. In this manner, especially urban bird populations have recently gained broad attention by an increasing number of ecologists. Urban avoiders - typically sensitive and specialized bird species often vanish from urbanized landscapes. However, many bird species were able to colonize urban environment and coexist successfully with man. Populations of birds living in such a new type of environment show many characteristics different from populations living in original habitats. The objective of this work is to review current studies about changes of life strategies in urban bird populations such as modifications of acoustic signals, differences in reproductive and food ecology and physiological or behavioural responses.
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Factors influencing flight-initiation distance in reptiles and the comparison with endotherm vertebrates
Fictumová, Tereza ; Frýdlová, Petra (advisor) ; Sedláček, Ondřej (referee)
The fleeing behaviour is one of the most common antipredatory strategy. It is intensively studied in many groups of animals. The flight-initiation distance (FID) is used for quantification of fleeing behaviour. The FID represents the distance between a prey and an approaching predator in which the prey starts fleeing. The FID is also used for quantifying of preys fear. The factors influencing FID in reptiles are: temperature, habitat, refuge availability, foraging strategies, predator behaviour etc. I discovered some factors which are different for mammals and birds. The most important difference is the ectothermy in reptiles vs. the endothermy in mammals and birds. Another difference is parental care, alarm calls and grouping. The factors as an influence of predator, refuge availability or type of habitat seems to have very similar or the same impact on FID for both groups.
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More-individuals hypothesis
Bohdalková, Eliška ; Storch, David (advisor) ; Sedláček, Ondřej (referee)
Gradients in species richness are often explained by variation in energy availability. Positive relationship between energy and number of species may be caused by many mechanisms. One of them is the 'more individuals' hypothesis (MIH). According to it greater energy availability enable more individuals to coexist and more individuals can be divided into more species with viable populations. However, authors do vary in exact formulation of the MIH and so they vary in predictions that they test. Review of literature has also revealed that studies are fundamentally different in the approach to testing MIH. Some studies examine whether mechanism of MIH can operate in real assemblages and they often give a positive answer. Other studies ask whether MIH is able to explain spatial patterns of species richness. The answer is mostly negative. Number of species is often closely related to energy without the mediating effect of the number of individuals. There is also the question whether the number of individuals really determines number of species, and not vice versa. However, these two variables are certainly linked. Therefore, regardless of the causality, the relationship between the number of individuals and number of species is worth exploring.
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New environment grings new interaction:coexistence of closely related birds in urban mosaic
Sedláček, Ondřej ; Fuchs, Roman (advisor) ; Grim, Tomáš (referee) ; Procházka, Petr (referee)
I I New environment brings new interaďions: coexistence of closely related birds in urban mosaic ondřej Sedláček 1. SUMMARYOF THE THESIS The ongoingurbanizationrapidlychangesenvironmentsof mostplantand animal species worldwideand ecologistshave recentlyincreasedtheir attentionto biodiversiýconservationin man-affected|andscapes.HoWeVer,besidesspecia|ised species,whichdisappeardue to dramatichabitatconversion,manyorganismsare ableto changetheirbehaviour,physiologyand life historiesand haveadaptedto humanproximity.Citiesthereforeprovidea,,natura||aboratoý.,whichenablesusto studyecologicaland physiologicaladaptationsof synanthropicorganisms.Urban environmentsare a|soýpica|for theirhabitatheterogeneiý'Thanksto the mosaic natureof diversehabitats,specieswith differenthabitatselectioncometo close contaďin cities.ThisphenomenonWasa re|ative|yneg|eďedresearchareain urban ecology.A good model for this kind of investigationseemsto be a coupleof congenericbirdspecies,whicharerecentlycommonin urbanhabitatsacrossEurope - Black Redstart (Phoenicurusochruros)and Redstaft (P. phoenicurus).The two specieshavesimilarnestingandforagingecologybutoccupydifferenthabitatsunder naturalconditions.The BlackRedstartprimarilybreedsin open,rockyrerrainin mountaineousareas.This relativelyspecia|habitatýpe has spreadacrossEurope with...
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The effect of a predator occurrence on vigilance of tits visiting the winter feeder
Tichá, Irena ; Fuchs, Roman (advisor) ; Sedláček, Ondřej (referee)
This thesis evaluates the vigilance parameters of two species of tits affected by the presence of a predator in wintertime. During preferential experiments, tits have had a choice of two feeders in the vicinity of the installed dummy predator. For that purpose was used a dummy sparrowhawk, incomplete or occluded sparrowhawk torsos, and harmless pigeon. It is known that the tits are able to recognize dangerousness presented by the dummy, and according to expected risk dare to visit one of the feeders. It leads to a question whether the tits are somehow influenced by the presence of the dummies, and if so, how specifically are they influenced. It turned out, that the tits in presence of a dangerous dummy significantly increased their vigilance. Both observed species at the feeders behave oppositely. Behaviour of all the birds at the feeder is also affected by their total count at the precise moment and by the presence of a dummy at the other feeder.
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Altitudinal migrations in animals and their study methods
Zenklová, Tereza ; Sedláček, Ondřej (advisor) ; Klvaňa, Petr (referee)
Migration as a response to the seasonality of the environment is common in many animal taxa. Strong fluctuation of the climate is usually connected to regions in the temperate zone, quite common is in the tropical regions as well. Typically, it is even more pronounced in high altitudes. In such environment, many animals could migrate altitudinaly as a response to changes in the climatic conditions or food abundance. But determinants of altitudinal and long-distance latitudinal migrations could be different. The objective of this work is to determine factors influencing altitudinal migrations in diverse taxa (particularly in birds and bats) and in different biogeographical regions. I am trying to find some common features of migrating species, such as diet or temperature and rain tolerance. Especially tropical species are partial migrants, which means that only some individuals of the population migrate. I will discuss common features of such migrating infividuals. Study methods of altitudinal migration will be a part of this research as well. The work will be primarily concentrated on tropical regions.
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Role of aldehydes in multimodal aposematic signallig of true bugs
Bednářová, Hana ; Exnerová, Alice (advisor) ; Sedláček, Ondřej (referee)
1 Abstract: Multimodal signaling is quite common in nature. Even if we focus only on signaling among prey and its predator, we can still find many examples of communication combining more than one modality (vision, hearing, smell, taste). This thesis is about multimodal warning visual and olfactory signaling between true bugs (Heteroptera) and their avian predators. Aldehydes are an important compound of repellent secretion of most true bug species. They are considered to have defence effects against predators. In our experiments, we tested the effect of aldehydes mixture on behaviour of predators - naive hand-reared and experienced wild-caught adult great tits (Parus major) - towards several kinds of prey - aposematic true bugs Pyrrhocoris apterus, nonaposematic true bugs Pyrrhocoris tibialis and red painted mealworms (Tenebrio molitor larvae). We were focusing on the effect of aldehydes on initial reaction, learning process and predator's memory. Aldehydes elicited innate wariness in naive hand- reared great tits towards aposematic P. apterus, but not towards P. tibialis. Therefore it seems possible, that aldehydes act as a signal of unpalatability for naive predators, but only in multimodal combination with visual warning signal. Similar effect of aldehydes was not found in experiments with wild-caught...
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