Does vegetation change over 28 years affect habitat use and reproductive success?

Individuals should prefer and use habitats that confer high fitness, but habitat use is not always adaptive. Vegetation in natural landscapes changes gradually and the ability of species to adaptively adjust their habitat use to long-term changes is largely unstudied. We studied nest patch and territory use over 28 years in Orange-crowned Warblers (Oreothlypis celata) in a system that has undergone natural long-term changes in vegetation. Abundance of maple (Acer grandidentatum), its preferred nesting habitat, has gradually declined from 1987 to 2015. We examined whether habitat use and its fitness consequences changed as the availability of preferred habitat decreased. We used resource selection function models to determine changes over time in the probability of using a nest patch given available patches, and the probability of using a territory given available territories. We estimated nest survival to evaluate changes over time in the fitness consequences of nest patch use. We also ...

动物个体通常会偏好并利用能够赋予高适合度的生境，但生境利用并不总是具有适应性的。自然景观中的植被会发生渐进式变化，而物种针对长期生境变化适应性调整其生境利用策略的能力，在很大程度上仍未得到研究。我们针对橙顶灶莺（Orange-crowned Warbler, Oreothlypis celata）开展了一项为期28年的巢斑与领域利用研究，该研究涉及的植被系统正经历自然长期变化。该物种偏好的筑巢生境——大柄枫（Acer grandidentatum）的种群丰度自1987年至2015年持续逐步下降。我们探究了当偏好生境的可获得性降低时，生境利用模式及其适合度效应是否发生了变化。我们采用资源选择函数（resource selection function, RSF）模型，分析了在可用巢斑中选择某一巢斑的概率、以及在可用领域中选择某一领域的概率随时间的变化趋势。我们通过估算巢存活率，评估了筑巢生境选择所带来的适合度后果随时间的变化。此外，我们还……