{"id":653,"date":"2011-02-11T15:43:29","date_gmt":"2011-02-11T20:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thequicksliver.wordpress.com\/?p=653"},"modified":"2011-02-11T15:43:29","modified_gmt":"2011-02-11T20:43:29","slug":"2-11-11-alpha-nests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/2-11-11-alpha-nests\/","title":{"rendered":"2.11.11 Alpha Nests"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

In the animal kingdom, bigger is definitely better, and artificial augmentation is a key to success.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

But in this case we’re talking about birds, not humans.\u00a0 In a recent study, Spanish biologists were investigating the nesting habits of small birds of prey called kites.\u00a0 They discovered that, across the species, the most successful mating pairs lived in the largest nests.\u00a0 The bigger the nest, the more impressive the territory they controlled and the more offspring they produced.\u00a0 But then the researchers noticed something else:\u00a0 many of these mongo nests were adorned with scraps of plastic, which flapped garishly in the breeze.\u00a0 At first the researchers assumed the purpose of the plastic was to attract mates, but then they noticed that the kites kept adding plastic even after mating and having families.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

So the researchers did a plastic-nest-audit.\u00a0 And they found that smaller nests usually had little or no plastic and were inhabited by meek birds that were constantly being attacked by other kites, sometimes up to six times an hour.\u00a0 As a result, they were constantly stressed and produced fewer offspring.\u00a0 Meanwhile the larger, artificially enhanced nests were almost never assaulted.\u00a0 The nests with the most garish amounts of white plastic – if you’re a Spanish kite, white is the new black – invariably were home to the largest, most powerful and successful mating pairs.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

One would think that the success of these artificial nest enhancements would lead all the other kites to imitate that behavior.\u00a0\u00a0 But no.\u00a0 When the researchers added white plastic to some of the smaller nests, it was immediately removed.\u00a0\u00a0 And surprisingly, it was removed by those nests’ own inhabitants, apparently out of subservience to their larger-and-artificially-enhanced neighbors.\u00a0 So it seems that plastic nest building is not so much a factor for success as it is an earned privilege of the ruling alpha-kites, and a sign of their superiority over their pitiful organic neighbors.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a>It’s survival of the fittest for the polymer age.\u00a0 And, fittingly, it brings a whole new meaning to that old plastic trash bag slogan:\u00a0 wimpy wimpy wimpy, HEFTY HEFTY HEFTY!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the animal kingdom, bigger is definitely better, and artificial augmentation is a key to success. But in this case we’re talking about birds, not humans.\u00a0 In a recent study, Spanish biologists were investigating the nesting habits of small birds of prey called kites.\u00a0 They discovered that, across the species,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[141,408,867,955,1026],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-6","tag-birds","tag-evolution","tag-nests","tag-plastic","tag-research"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}