Nesting data from 42 Arabian Babbler (Argya squamiceps) nests

Human villages in deserts can provide resources in an otherwise stark environment, potentially buffering against extreme environmental conditions. It is thus expected that breeding within these villages would result in higher fitness. However, choosing to raise offspring in these resource-rich environments may have unintended negative consequences. Here, we studied the breeding success of a cooperative breeding bird nesting in habitats with different levels of human disturbance – the Arabian babbler (Argya squamiceps), in the Negev desert of Israel. We recorded 42 breeding attempts from 15 groups between March and July, 2022. We examined overall breeding success, brood size, and causes of nest failure. When nestlings were 6-days old we also calculated daily change in body mass and adult provisioning rate. We found that despite higher resource abundance in villages, proximity to villages did not affect provisioning rate, and nestling gained less mass at higher temperatures for all nests...., Nests were monitored daily using remote motion-activated security cameras with 4G uplink via a SIM card (Reolink Go Plus 4G, Reolink USA) directly through the Reolink smartphone app (©Reolink). Nest cameras were placed on nests found at any stage (building, eggs, nestlings) and were left in place until a few days after the nest reached completion (either failing or succeeding). The cameras used wide-angle lenses, and so needed to be placed close to nests (~30 cm), but initial observations showed that babblers spent < 5 min investigating the camera before resuming normal activity (e.g. brooding, incubating, feeding). We masked the cameras’ infra-red lights to reduce/eliminate attention to the nest when cameras were triggered by motion at night., , # Nesting data from 42 Arabian Babbler (Argya squamiceps) nests

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8cz8w9h01](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8cz8w9h01)

We collected breeding data for 42 nests from 15 groups of babblers whose territories made use of habitats with different levels of anthropogenic presence. The Sde Tzin plateau consists of a mosaic of human-modified habitats including a) human villages (‘village’), b) agricultural fields and orchards (‘orchard’), and c) interspersed areas of semi-wild desert plateau (‘plateau’).

For each nest we recorded its GPS location, habitat type (village, orchard, plateau), brood size (number of nestlings in the nest; from 2 – 8), group size (from 2 – 14 adults), nest attempt (from 1 – 6), the group identification (‘Group ID’), and the number of previously successful nests in that group (from 0 – 3). We calculated the distance (m) of each nest to the nearest village’s perimeter fence. For nests inside villages, this distance was set as negative values...