Nest predation rates critically influence avian biodiversity and evolution. In the north temperate zone, increased nest failure along edges of forest fragments is hypothesized to play a major role in the disappearance of bird species from disturbed landscapes. However, we lack comprehensive syntheses from tropical latitudes, where biodiversity is highest and increasingly threatened by habitat fragmentation and disturbance. We assembled data from five decades of field studies across the global tropics (1,112 populations of 661 species) and used phylogenetic models to evaluate proposed predictors of nest success. We found significant effects of several traits, including adult body mass and nest architecture. Contrary to results from many temperate locations, anthropogenic habitat disruption did not consistently reduce nest success; in fact, raw nest success rates were lower in large tracts of primary forest than in disturbed or fragmented landscapes. Follow-up analyses within species, using a subset of 76 species for which we had estimates of nest survival in habitats with different levels of disruption, confirmed that neither disturbance nor fragmentation significantly influenced nest success. These results suggest that nest predation alone cannot explain observed declines in avian biodiversity in tropical forest fragments, raising new questions about the demographic processes that drive extinction in the tropics.

中文翻译：

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生态学和生活史预测全球热带地区鸟类巢穴的成功


巢穴捕食率严重影响鸟类的生物多样性和进化。在北温带，据推测，沿森林碎片边缘的巢穴破坏增加是鸟类物种从受干扰景观中消失的主要原因。然而，我们缺乏来自热带纬度的全面综合，那里的生物多样性最高，并且越来越受到栖息地破碎化和干扰的威胁。我们收集了来自全球热带地区（661 个物种的 1,112 个种群）的五十年实地研究数据，并使用系统发育模型来评估拟议的巢穴成功预测因子。我们发现了几个性状的显着影响，包括成虫体重和巢穴结构。与许多温带地区的结果相反，人为栖息地破坏并未始终降低筑巢成功率;事实上，大片原始森林的原始巢成功率低于受干扰或碎片化的景观。使用76个物种的子集进行物种内部的后续分析，我们对这些物种在不同破坏程度的栖息地中的巢穴存活率进行了估计，证实干扰和碎片化都没有显著影响巢穴的成功。这些结果表明，仅靠巢穴捕食无法解释在热带森林碎片中观察到的鸟类生物多样性下降，这引发了关于导致热带地区灭绝的人口过程的新问题。