Winter Nest-Box Selection Of Great Tit (Parus Major) And The Relationship Between Its Site Fidelity And Reproductive Success

Winter nest site selection is a series of behavioral adaptation mechanisms formed by long-term evolution of birds against various adverse conditions in harsh environment.Factors influencing the selection of winter nest site includes safety,human interference,environmental temperature,food resources and water.Habitat is the space where an individual,population or community makes its life process.Many wild animals show fidelity to their habitats.Strong site fidelity is conducive to the improvement of survival rate and reproductive success.In this study,I checked nest-box and weighed the droppings in the nest-boxes of great tits to study the relationship between the roosting nest-box selection and 16 habitat factors in winter night and revealed the factors influencing roosting nest-box selection in winter.I recorded the breeding success of great tits who had site fidelity and explored the relationship between site fidelity and breeding success.The main results are as follows:1)Great tits slept alone in nest-box in winter and used a relatively fixed nest-box.The returning time was generally within half an hour around sunset.2)The results from binary logistic regression analysis concerning 16 habitat factors of 137 nest-boxes used by great tits for winter night roosting and 147 nest-boxes unused showed that the distance from the residence(P = 0.000)and the size of the nest entrance(P = 0.000)entered the final binary logistic regression model and reached the significant level.The total prediction rate of the model was 72.2%.The distance between the residence and used nest-boxes(593.992 ± 623.817m)in winter night was significantly smaller than that of the unused ones(1126.585 ± 904.598m).The size of the nest entrance of the used nest-boxes(4.211 ± 0.821cm)was smaller than that of the unused nest-boxes(4.214 ± 1.086cm).3)The results from multiple linear regression showed that there was a significantly positive correlation between droppings weight and solar radiation duration(r = 0.264,P = 0.002).The longer time nest-box received solar radiation,the more frequently great tits roosted in the nest-box.4)The mean distance between winter and spring capture places was 237.217 ± 281.737m(0m~1190m;n = 23).The brood sizes of breeding pairs having site fidelity was significantly lower than the population mean level(n = 5,P = 0.000).The number of chicks produced by the males having site fidelity was significantly higher than the population mean level(n = 15,P = 0.025).To sum up,great tits prefer nest-box near human-residence with a relatively small entrance,and also having long solar radiation duration.In that I believe the main factors influencing selection of winter night nest-box for great tits are food resource abundance,temperature and safety.Great tits have a certain degree of site fidelity.The reproductive success is related with parents' site fidelity.