Kalahari Apartment Blocks part two: retail value increases in harsher environments

This blog post is provided by Anthony M. Lowney and Robert L. Thomson from the Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town and tells the #StoryBehindThePaper for the paper ‘Ecological engineering across a spatial gradient: Sociable weaver colonies facilitate animal associations with increasing environmental harshness’, which was recently published in the Journal of Animal Ecology. Sociable weavers (Philetairus socius) are small passerine birds, endemic to southern Africa. They weigh no … Continue reading Kalahari Apartment Blocks part two: retail value increases in harsher environments

Eggs and cooperation: a long-term study

This blog post is provided by Rita Fortuna and tells the #StoryBehindThePaper for the article “Maternal allocation in relation to weather, predation and social factors in a colonial cooperative bird“, which was recently published in Journal of Animal Ecology. For almost a decade, we weighed over 9,000 sociable weaver eggs (Philetairus socius). Behind this paper, as with every long-term study, is an incredible amount of … Continue reading Eggs and cooperation: a long-term study