A scientific team found that vultures have different diet patterns depending on the place where they breed, regardless of the available resources.

This indicates that they have different “tastes” by cultural transmission among individuals of the same population. Until now, it was believed that vultures were opportunistic species that consumed any type of carrion without indiscriminately.

Plants and their dispersers form interaction networks whose structure has important implications for the persistence and stability of the community. Frugivory is vital for the dispersal of many plants, but the dispersal interactions between plants and non-frugivorous animals are poorly studied. In this study, the authors characterized the structure of networks for seed dispersal by waterfowl, considered whether their structure is similar to that of the networks formed between frugivorous...

The study of the relationship between the ecological niche breadth and spatial distribution of species has been a core topic in ecology. Ecological niche breadth measures the degree of specialisation or generalisation of the resources species use (Eltonian definition of ecological niche) or the conditions which they inhabit (Grinnellian definition). Different domains of the ecological niche, such as climatic tolerance, habitat breadth and dietary breadth, have been shown to be positively...

Distinctive pheomelanin-based plumage colouration in juvenile birds has been proposed as a signal of immaturity to avoid aggression by older conspecifics, but recent findings suggest a detoxifying strategy. Pheomelanin synthesis implies the consumption of cysteine, a semi-essential amino acid that is necessary for the synthesis of the antioxidant glutathione (GSH) but that may be toxic if in excess in the diet.

Parasites and other symbionts are crucial components of ecosystems, regulating host populations and supporting food webs. However, most symbiont systems, especially those involving commensals and mutualists, are relatively poorly understood. In this study, the nature of the symbiotic relationship between birds and their most abundant and diverse ectosymbionts, the vane?dwelling feather mites, has been investigated.