Université de Sherbrooke
M.Sc. candidate
Supervisor: Dany Garant
Marc Bélisle, Université de Sherbrooke
Start: 2018-01-08
End: 2020-01-13

Project

Nesting habitat selection in Tree swallows (T. bicolor): an ecological trap?
When it comes to habitat selection, animals use environmental cues that should reflect the quality of a habitat and allow individuals to make optimal choices. A decoupling between those cues and the true quality of a habitat can lead to a poor assessment of the habitat. Individuals thus make non-optimal choices, a phenomenon called «ecological trap». My project will explore if intensive farming can create large scale ecological traps on Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) in the South of Québec. More specifically, I will quantify the influence of multiple ecological variables on discrepancies between the order of establishment on nest sites and their ranking in terms of quality, such as determined by reproductive success and prey availability.

Keywords

Sélection d'habitat, Trappe écologique, Nidification, Hirondelle bicolore , Ecologie comportementale/Behavioural ecology, Écologie du paysage, Insectivore aérien