The energetic costs of nest building in birds

Mark C. Mainwaring, Ian R. Hartley

    Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

    140 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Parental investment in reproduction is generally limited by the availability of food and so avian life-history research has generally focused on the brood rearing phase, when food requirements are greatest. Only relatively recently has the focus extended to the incubation phase and, even more recently, to the nest-building phase where there is now observational, comparative and experimental evidence that avian nest building is an energetically and temporally expensive activity. This review emphasises that nest construction is energetically expensive and we suggest that such costs should be incorporated into avian life-history research.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)12-17
    Number of pages6
    JournalAvian Biology Research
    Volume6
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Mar 2013

    Keywords

    • Birds
    • Differential allocation
    • Extended phenotypic signal
    • Life-history evolution
    • Nest construction
    • Reproductive costs

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