great tit

How to avoid becoming a cuckolded tit.

gregladen — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 07:28:58 +0000

How to avoid becoming a cuckolded tit.

The tl:dr... don't sleep late.

gregladen Tue, 07/21/2015 - 03:28

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Australian blue wren females too are notorious hussies in this vein. I'm not sure to what extent the rising time of the male partners might matter though, because apparently the females listen to neighbouring males' songs during the day and flit away at night for some extra-marital hanky-panky with the fellas who sound particularly scrumptious...

Shy birds build "better" bonds

dr. dolittle — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 22:58:27 +0000

Shy birds build "better" bonds

Image of male great tit from BBC Nature News.

A new study published in Ecology Letters suggests that shy male great tits build stronger bonds with birds in their own flock. This population of birds has been studied in Wytham Woods, near Oxford, UK since 1947.

In case you are wondering, the team determined "shyness" and "boldness" by capturing birds and placing them in a novel environment for 10 minutes. Shy birds were slow to explore the new environment whereas bold birds explored it quickly. The birds were then tagged and tracked using radio transmitters. The researchers observed that "shy" birds tended to remain with the same flock and associated with fewer birds whereas "bold" birds foraged for food with several groups of birds and maintained numerous short-term associations.

In a quote from BBC Nature News study author Aplin said, "Males tend to prefer to associate with individuals with the same personality type as them and we think this might be to do with shy birds avoiding bold males."

I find it interesting that these behaviors are so similar to those of the students that I come across on a daily basis.

Sources:

Aplin LM, Farine DR, Morand-Ferron J, Cole EF, Cockburn A, Sheldon BC. Individual personalities predict social behaviour in wild networks of great tits (Parus major). Ecology Letters, 17 SEP 2013. DOI: 10.1111/ele.12181

BBC Nature News

dr. dolittle Mon, 09/23/2013 - 18:58

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Very good bird. But she is so shy.
Keep her beautiful.
Thank you.

Best Regards
Ilmu Kimia

Interesting.....I just read a similar article that said that by researching shy verses bold birds, scientists can determine social behavior, spread of diseases, and spread of information.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/24126083

Even more interesting, though, is the idea that introversion and extroversion are not solely human traits. Which makes a lot of sense considering that both personality types have a measurable impact on evolutionary progress and survival of a species (i.e., extroverts help us expand quickly by being rash and impulsive while introverts keep us grounded and cautious by hanging back; if the introverts stay back and a predator sacks the community, the extroverts, who are out being extroverts, survive; if the extroverts run into predators in the wild and get eaten, the introverts back at the community have survived).

Beautiful bird. I have this bird too.
This bird is very beautiful and this bird is good singing everytime. Nice nice...

Regard

Ilmu Bahasa

I never see such a beautyful bird as this one.. I hope they'll survive from hunter.
sincerely yours,
Belajar Kimia Kelas

I wonder if when it comes to reproduction the same "Shyness" and "Boldness" are factors in that as well?

What do Great Tits Reveal about the Genetics of Personality?

grrlscientist — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:59:56 +0000

What do Great Tits Reveal about the Genetics of Personality?

tags: evolutionary biology, behavioral ecology, molecular ecology, personality, novelty seeking, exploratory behavior, dopamine receptor, dopamine receptor D4 gene, DRD4 gene polymorphism, ornithology, birds, Great Tit, Parus major, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper

Bold or cautious? Individuals with a particular gene variant are very curious --
but only in some populations.

Image: Henk Dikkers.

Research suggests that personality variations are heritable in humans and other animal species, and there are many hypotheses as to why differences in personality exist and are maintained. One approach for investigating the heritability of personality lies in identifying which genes underlie specific personality traits so scientists can then determine how the frequencies of specific variants of personality-related genes change in both space and time as well as in relation to changing environmental influences.

For example, in humans, the best-studied "personality gene" is the dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) gene, which is involved in motivation, pleasure, cognition, memory, and learning. The DRD4 gene encodes a receptor protein that binds to the neurotransmitter, dopamine. When DRD4 binds dopamine, this interaction influences novelty seeking and exploratory behavior in a range of species, including humans and birds.

As is true for most genes, there are variants -- known as polymorphisms -- of DRD4. These polymorphisms alter the binding dynamics of DRD4 for its ligand, dopamine: different variants bind dopamine more or less tightly, and this difference in binding affinity alters behavior. For example, previous research has suggested that variations in the DRD4 gene in the Great Tit, Parus major, are the underlying reason that some of these birds are more curious than others [DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2007.04.006]. This association was originally noted and tested in 2007 in only one population of Great Tits that were hand-raised captives [DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2007.0337].

But association studies such as these rarely show consistent correlations between genes and behavior across populations and environments. Thus, it was decided to repeat this work with large numbers of wild Great Tits from four distantly located populations.

"It was important to confirm the association between the DRD4 variants and exploratory behavior in the original population," explained Bart Kempenaers, director at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany.

To repeat this work, Dr Kempenaers and an international team of scientists captured young adult birds captured in the field (Figure 1) from four different populations -- including wild relatives of the original group of captive Great Tits studied; Westerheide.

Fig. 1 Locations of four wild great tit populations investigated for associations between exploratory behaviour and DRD4 SNP830 and ID15 polymorphisms. Populations are Westerheide (WH), Lauwersmeer (LM), Boshoek (BH) and Wytham Woods (WW).
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2009.04518.x

To do this work, the team captured only wild birds that had been individually marked with color-coded leg bands when nestlings, so they knew the precise age and family relationships for each bird. After capture, the birds were kept overnight in individual cages adjacent to the test chamber. The following morning, each bird was separately released into the test chamber, a novel environment containing five artificial "trees," and the bird's behavior was documented. The frequency of hops and flights between the perches on the artificial trees were counted and scored as a proxy for exploratory behavior (pictured below).

Test chamber containing five artificial "trees" where the birds' exploratory behaviors in a novel environment were assessed.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2009.04518.x

Image: Anne Rutten.

Prior to releasing the birds in their respective homes, a feather or a small blood sample was collected and then the two DRD4 gene variants (SNP830 and ID15) were identified for each of the 491 individual birds. When the team analyzed the genetic data, they were surprised to learn that the frequency of the SNP830 and ID15 polymorphisms of DRD4 were the same in all of the populations (Figure 2):

Fig. 2 Proportions of DRD4 SNP830 (A) and ID15 (B) genotypes in four wild great tit populations: Westerheide (WH), Lauwersmeer (LM), Boshoek (BH) and Wytham Woods (WW).
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2009.04518.x

Interestingly, although the team found that DRD4 polymorphisms were statistically the same, the average exploratory scores differed significantly between the four populations studied (Figure 3):

Fig. 3 Box plots of exploration scores (corrected for seasonal trend) of four wild great tit populations: Westerheide (WH), Wytham Woods (WW), Boshoek (BH), and Lauwersmeer (LM). Box plots indicate medians and the 10th, 25th, 75th and 90th percentiles; 5th and 95th percentiles are indicated by the filled circles; the open circles indicate the population means.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2009.04518.x

To their surprise, the team found that exploratory behavior demonstrated by the Westerheide population was significantly associated with SNP830 genotype, while birds from the other three populations showed either a weak or nonexistent correlation (Figure 4):

Fig. 4 Exploration scores (corrected for seasonal trend; means with standard errors) of wild great tits of four populations in relation to the DRD4 SNP830 genotype. Exploration scores were significantly associated with SNP830 genotype in Westerheide.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2009.04518.x

Additional analyses showed that the strength of this association was not different between the original 2007 group of hand-raised birds and the free-living birds from the population tested in this follow-up study.

"But," Dr Kempenaers cautioned, "we do not yet understand the differences between populations."

They also found that the relationship between the SNP830 genotype and exploratory behavior was independent of the sex of individuals.

"To our knowledge, this is the most extensive study of gene variants underlying personality-related behavioral variation in a free-living animal to date, and the first to compare different wild populations", said Peter Korsten, first author on the paper and a former member of Bart Kempenaers' lab.

These differences between avian populations are a reiteration of the age-old "nature versus nurture" controversy. Basically, an individual gene's influence on behavior is usually subtle and very likely occurs in concert with many other still unidentified genes. Additionally, a gene's located on a chromosome is important: close neighbors on the DNA strand tend to travel together during genetic reassortment, even when their functions are quite different, so these findings could be a "location artifact." Further, genetic effects probably play a small role in personality when compared to the strong influence of the environment, especially in species such as birds where learning is so vitally important to their socialization.

"Perhaps further investigation of Great Tit populations could shed some light on the differences in outcome in the human populations," suggested Dr Korsten optimistically.

For example, several polymorphisms in the DRD4 gene sequence have been identified in humans that are associated with certain mental health and cognitive disorders such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Call me a skeptic, but I do not share Dr Korsten's optimism.

Source:

Korsten, P., Mueller, J., HermannstÃ¤dter, C., Bouwman, K., Dingemanse, N., Drent, P., Liedvogel, M., Matthysen, E., van Oers, K., van Overveld, T., Patrick, S., Quinn, J., Sheldon, B., Tinbergen, J., & Kempenaers, B. (2010). Association between DRD4 gene polymorphism and personality variation in great tits: a test across four wild populations. Molecular Ecology, 19 (4), 832-843 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2009.04518.x

grrlscientist Thu, 04/08/2010 - 05:59

Most. Misleading. Title. Ever.

Not that misleading. If you were thinking of a great rack, aka human female mammaries, you could easily make a not so great jump to the conclusion that 'Within a population/culture/region individuals with similar phenotypes tend to express similar personalities, but that same phenotype in a different place will most certainly have different personalities from your previous population.'
Right?

not even nearly, Chris. there used to be a webpage around titled "watch these great tits", leading to a webcam of the inside of a birdhouse --- the ornithologist's version of rickrolling.

(the hatchlings were pretty cute, though.)

tits are among the world's cutest birds.

How cute are boobies, though?

They are about as cute as hooters.

At the risk of stoking the fires of innuendo further, Titmouse (the original name of these birds) derives from the Middle English "tit" meaning small and the old German "mees" also meaning small so the bird is really "smallsmall". Anagram says "Timeouts"

Colorful Tits Produce Speedier Sperm

grrlscientist — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:51:03 +0000

Colorful Tits Produce Speedier Sperm

tags: evolution, evolutionary biology, evolutionary ecology, plumage color,carotenoid-based colour, carotenoids, lipid peroxidation, oxidative stress, sperm motility, sperm quality, sperm velocity, birds, ornithology, Great Tit, Parus major, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper

Great Tit, Parus major.

Image: Luc Viatour, Creative Commons/Wikipedia [larger view]

In some species of birds, males are more brightly colored than females. This phenomenon is due to female choice: females choose to mate with males that have the brightest plumage colors and most elaborate ornaments. But these characters are more than mere glitzy advertising, they are an example of honest signals because the brightest plumage and most elaborate ornaments are worn only by those males who have managed to procure enough resources necessary to grow them. But what is the link between plumage brightness and male quality? According to a newly published study of Great Tits, Parus major, males with more intensely colored breast plumage produce faster and more motile sperm.

Earlier work found a correlation between plumage color and male quality, but this new research delved further into this relationship and found that free radicals are the key to the puzzle.

Free radicals are produced by living cells as a part of normal metabolic processes and also when cells are exposed to pollution and other stressors. Free radicals are molecules, ions and even atoms with unpaired electrons, which makes them highly chemically reactive. Free radicals damage living cells by oxidizing DNA, proteins and lipids, thus causing a variety of negative effects from cancer to aging. Because they have sparse molecular repair machinery, sperm cells are particularly sensitive to free radical damages, which weakens their swimming ability, leading to decreased fertility in both animals and humans.

Free radicals are absorbed by a group of molecules known as carotenoids. These molecules not only defend cells against free radicals but carotenoids are a group of organic pigments that provide vibrant colors to all sorts of familiar items, from tomatoes and oranges to autumn leaves.

One hypothesis proposes that when a bird consumes more carotenoids than it needs to neutralize free radicals, those extra molecules are deposited into newly-growing feathers that are replaced during moult; the more carotenoids deposited into the feathers, the brighter those feathers will be. (Humans who eat excessive amounts of carotenoid-containing foods, such as carrots, likewise deposit carotenoids into their integument, rendering their skin a delightful shade of orange). According to another hypothesis, carotenoid-based plumage colors may be an honest signal of an individual male's capacity to acquire, absorb and metabolize carotenoids or other more potent, colorless dietary antioxidants, which may in turn protect carotenoid pigments from oxidation and make them accessible to signaling.

To test the relationship between carotenoid-based plumage color and the quality of individual male birds, an international team of scientists from Switzerland, France, Norway and the UK studied free-ranging Great Tits, a common European bird with carotenoid-based yellow breast plumage. First, the brightness of the birds' breast plumage was measured using a spectrophotometer and rated with a positive ("bright") or negative ("pale") number.

After the plumage brightness was determined, the team increased the stress levels of adult birds by giving them two extra nestlings to raise. At 7 and 15 days after the chicks hatched, the researchers trapped both the stressed and non-stressed males and massaged their cloacas to make the birds ejaculate. Speed and motility of the sperm were observed microscopically. The scientists found that sperm quality was roughly the same in non-stressed males, but among day 7 stressed males, birds with paler plumage suffered a decline in sperm quality (although this difference had nearly disappeared for all day 15 stressed birds).

According to these data, stressed males with paler plumage were able to compensate for the additional stress of having to raise more nestlings, given enough time. To test this observation, the researchers trapped 60 stressed male Great Tits seven and eleven days after their chicks hatched and fed them insect larva. The control group was fed unadulterated "placebo" insect larva while experimental group males were fed carotenoid-laced larva (provided in the relative proportions found in insects that Great Tits consume in the wild: 80% lutein, 3% zeaxanthin -- the two pigments found in great tit feathers -- and 17% β-β carotene). The experimental group were provided four times the daily amount of carotenoids that males obtain from their natural diet. (Figure 3)

Figure 3 Percentage of motile sperm in relation to brood enlargement and carotenoid supplementation (means ± SE). Among males subjected to oxidative stress (enlarged brood), carotenoid-supplemented males produced sperm of greater motility than males that received a placebo (Scheffe post hoc test: P = 0.038, indicated by an asterisk in the figure).
DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01419.x

Again, the team found that this "vitamin supplement" improved the paler males' sperm quality -- adding support to the link between plumage color, carotenoids and sperm quality.

This study begins to unravel the century-long mystery of why males often have brilliant plumage colors, even though this makes the birds more conspicuous to predators, says the team leader Fabrice Helfenstein, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

Variations in individual male's resistance to oxidative stress may underlie variations in survival. Therefore, if a male's ability to resist oxidative stress is heritable, this study suggests a mechanism by which sperm quality and viability would be associated.

Not only does this study support a direct link between plumage color and male quality, but it also provides insight into why female Great Tits cheat, adds Helfenstein.

Females that choose to copulate with more brightly colored males gain direct fitness benefits by fertilizing their eggs with sperm with less damage caused by free radicals, hence avoiding the risk of infertility associated with sperm carrying more free radical damages. Additionally, oxidative damages to sperm DNA translate into deleterious mutations in the zygote. Thus, unfaithful females paired to males with pale plumage not only avoid the increased risk of infertility but also avoid producing low quality offspring that carry heritable deleterious mutations.

Because "females cannot always get the [colorful] males they want," Helfenstein explains, females will often settle for a less flashy mate. "But they will still sneak off for a rendezvous with a better-looking male -- and better sperm."

"It adds a bit of understanding to this puzzle."

Source:

Helfenstein, F., Losdat, S., MÃ¸ller, A., Blount, J., & Richner, H. (2010). Sperm of colourful males are better protected against oxidative stress. Ecology Letters, 13 (2), 213-222 DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01419.x

grrlscientist Fri, 01/22/2010 - 05:51

Makes sense.

My hair used to be much brighter when I was younger.

In support:

Senar, J.C., Negro, J.J., Quesada, J., Ruiz, I., and Garrido, J. (2008). Two pieces of information in a single trait? The yellow breast of the great tit (Parus major) reflects both pigment acquisition and body condition. Behavior 145:1195-1210

Slagsfold, T. and Lifjeld, J.T. (1985). Variation in plumage colour of the great tit Parus major in realtion to habitat, season , and food. Journal of Zoology, London 206, 321-328.

(and as a man of mixed-race, the headline certainly holds true!)

I'm imagining the reaction to your post title from people who aren't familiar with bird names. :-)

Fascinating. A healthy diet is good for everyone and I am so sure having read you for years, that the double entendre of the title crossed your mind when you posted.

Hungry great tits hunt for hibernating bats

edyong — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:00:58 +0000

Hungry great tits hunt for hibernating bats

When food is precious, animals can resort to strange behaviours in order to satisfy their hunger. Take the great tit. Its usual diet of insects and creepy-crawlies is harder to come by in winter. But in one Hungarian cave, great tits, ever the opportunists, have learned to exploit a rich and unusual source of food. They kill sleeping bats.

Great tits are only about 5 inches long, but their prey - the pipistrelle bat - is smaller still, just an inch or two in size. The bats spend the winter months hibernating in rock crevices. They're well hidden, but when they wake up, they start making noises and these are the telltale signs that the birds are listening out for. They hunt by flying slowly and systematically across the cave walls, eavesdropping on the bats' noises, and killing them while they're still woozy.

Peter Estok from Germany's Max-Planck Institute for Ornithology spent two winters watching a group of around 50 great tits hunting for bats. Previously, there had only been a smattering of anecdotal evidence that this happened. In one case, a tit was found eating a dead bat outside a Polish cave, but it could well have been scavenging off an already deceased corpse. Then, thirteen years ago, Estok saw a great tit capturing a live bat in a Hungarian cave. He was intrigued and he returned to the cave several times for more observations.

Tits lack the obvious killing apparatus of birds of prey but their short beaks are strong enough to dismember a tiny pipistrelle. Estok saw several instances of actual kills and recovered a few carcasses that showed obvious bite wounds. The bodies were picked clean enough to suggest that the birds were killing the bats for food and not, say, to remove competition for roosting spots.

These attacks are driven by necessity. On days when Estok hung a feeder outside the cave entrance, provisioned with seeds and bacon, he saw only one instance of a tit killing a bat. Without the feeder, he saw 17 such incidents.

Estok even confirmed the tits' hunting technique by recording the noises of waking bats and playing them back from a speaker hidden in the rocks. Around 80% of the birds reacted strongly to the sounds, approaching the speaker and investigating more closely. This is especially interesting because other studies have found that the calls of waking bats actually put off mammal predators - they tell them that the bats are awake and not susceptible to ambushes. But for birds, which can rival the bats in the air, these calls are far from a deterrent.

The odds of a great tit surviving for more than 8 years are one in a thousand. This means that the individual that Estok saw eating a bat in 1996 couldn't possibly be part of the same group that he studied this time round. Has the bat-killing behaviour passed down through generations of tits as a local cultural tradition? It's impossible to say for now, but there's certainly precedence for this - British blue tits famously learned to open milk bottles to drink the cream at the top and the behaviour spread like wildfire across the country.

Reference: Biology Letters doi:10.1098/rsbl.2009.0611

Image: Great tit by Luc Viatour; bat from paper.

More reading:

edyong Wed, 09/09/2009 - 04:00

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Drat! Or, snap :)

Americans insist on calling these things "chickadees".

This is the third time I've see this posted, after Jerry Coyne and PZ. I think the combination of a fascinating scientific find and a legitimate reason to post a headline with the phrase "great tits" is completely irresistible.

Or nuthatches.

I could make the same joke I made at Tet. Zoo, but that would just be silly. It involved Page 3 girls. That is all.

Superb piece Ed.

Resists making joke about tits...

Mystery Bird: Great tit, Parus major

grrlscientist — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 08:59:59 +0000

Mystery Bird: Great tit, Parus major

tags: Great tit, Parus major, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz

~~[Mystery bird]~~ Great tit, Parus major, photographed in Helsinki, Finland. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]

Image: GrrlScientist, 24 November 2008 [larger view].

Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.

Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:

Chickadees all look alike: chubby, rather long-tailed little birds with fluffy plumage, big heads, and black-and-white faces. In North America, our chickadees are a colorless lot, only Chestnut-sided straying from the standard pattern of gray and white.

It's different in the Old World, where chickadees (there called tits, 'little things', as in "tidbits") come in a range of bright colors. Thus, our quiz bird is green on the back, blue on the wings, and yellow beneath. In Europe, two species -- Blue Tit and Great Tit -- show that color combination, but only Great Tit has the extensive black "helmet" with bright white cheeks. This bird's relatively muted colors and apparent lack of a strong black stripe down the breast suggest that it is a female.

Like Tufted Titmouses in eastern North America, Great Tits will begin to sing just after the winter solstice, and their buzzy, syncopated "dzeezeeba, dzeezeeba" chant livens up the gray days of winter in cities and towns across Europe.

Review all mystery birds to date.

grrlscientist Sat, 12/06/2008 - 03:59

Tags

Great Tit - couldn't be anything else. (unless there's some other bird I've never heard of that looks EXACTLY like a great tit, but I highly doubt that somehow)

If you had a picture of it looking straight at the camera I'd even make a fair guess at the sex of this individual.

A narwhal. It's fat, in the cold, and has an elongated tusk.

Parus major. Bright yellow breast and flanks on a little titmousy bird. We had one (origin?) here in Milwaukee some while ago and I believe there are, or were, recent breeding records in IL. Escaped or freed cage birds was the speculation.

No hiding behind Latin for me. That, friends, is a Great Tit!

I can still remember being about 6 years old, going through the field guide, and being amused by names like "bushtit" and "titmouse".

In French it is called a mÃ©sange, and I like that name a lot more than 'tit'.
In the winter where i grew up (in France), we would soften butter, let it solidify around a fir cone, then hang the result in front of the window. The mÃ©sanges then came to perch on the thing and eat right in front of us.

Having grown up reading books about British birds (even though I've never set foot anywhere in Europe), I conclude without a shadow of a doubt that it's a Great Tit.

Tits! Yes, I need to grow up.