SSRP Abstract

Board 6: Nest Building Behavior and Architecture in House Wrens (Troglodytes aedon)

Student Scientist: Chandler Carr ’24
Research Mentor: Dustin Reichard (OWU Department of Biological Sciences)

House Wrens are a common backyard songbird that build nests in cavities they find. Rather than all nests being roughly the same, the structure of the nests are very different between wren pairs and we do not understand why. To help answer this question, we measured differences in nest structure between nesting attempts and tested whether female House Wrens, the primary creators of nests, build their nests consistently from clutch to clutch. We believe that since the primary cause of variation in nest building is the female that builds them, we will find little connection between nest structure and whether a nest is successful or not.

Nest architecture is one of the primary factors that determines the survival of nestling songbirds. The location, structure, size, and materials used are all important for protecting young from the surrounding environment. However, in House Wrens (Troglodytes aedon) past research that tried to relate nest structure to fitness largely yielded null results. Furthermore, nest architecture, such as height, is highly variable within and among populations, potentially suggesting minimal selection on nest architecture for offspring fitness. We explored how different nest characteristics such as nest height, distance between the cup and the entrance, and the number of feathers correlated with proxies for offspring fitness like parasitic load and the number of offspring fledged. We hypothesized that, in the absence of selective pressure, female House Wrens, the primary architect of nests, build their nests based on individual preferences. Therefore, the building female will be a stronger predictor for nest variation than proxies of offspring fitness.