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Reviewing papers by others is a part of the game, checkout Orr's Publons profile for contributions as a reviewer or the Research Gate and Google Scholar profiles for publication list
Movement Ecology and Individual Behavior
Tracking barn owl (Tyto alba) movement to assess individual differences in their pest control services
This work is in collaboration with Yossi Leshem
Agricultural monoculture is prevailing in many parts of the world, providing the food requirements of the ever-growing human population. Monoculture fields, however, often suffer from rodent outbreaks, resulting in both substantial yield-loss and intensive pesticide use. This use may lead to various detrimental side-effects like ground/aquifer pollution, or poisoning of non-target species in adjacent natural sites. Such negative impacts of agricultural practices on local environments may lead to biodiversity loss (extinctions) or to population declines.
One successful example for an alternative ‘green farming’ approach is the use of Barn owls (Tyto alba) as pest control agents. This approach utilizes the natural hunting ability of these owls to replace/reduce the common practice of chemical pesticides. Relying on the owls’ foraging activity requires in depth understanding of their foraging ecology and factors affecting variation in performance. Barn owls forage mostly in open grounds, but require nesting cavities (that are naturally rare in these habitats, often found in old buildings). The above, makes owls very receptive to nest box deployment and together with their tolerance of human presence, allow practitioners to substantially increase population densities in agricultural lands where prey is abundant. Nevertheless, how individual owls differ in their behavior, response to nesting boxes, and foraging preferences is largely unknown.
Our project focuses on the interaction between agriculture (human activity) and ecology. While the importance of animal behavior for conservation and ecosystem services is well established, individual differences in movement of free-ranging individuals (aka spatial behavioral type) remain understudies. Hence, in this research we attempt to understand the impact of individual differences among barn owls on the service they provide. We investigate whether individuals differ consistently in their movement (aka behavioral type, BT), do these types predict individuals' preferences in foraging and habitat selection, or mate selection? and, finally if these behavioral types are heritable from families?
The barn owl system in the Harod and HaMa’ayanot Valleys are an ideal research system for examining these questions because: (1) there is a large population of Barn owls nesting in nest boxes, facilitating captures and tagging of entire families; (2) Over the last two years we have deployed an ATLAS tracking system in this area that will allow us to track barn owl movements at high resolution for tens of individuals (3) On going pellets analysis by the national barn-owl project (linkHeb, linkNature) can provide complementary data about the owls’ diet.
We use tag owls to extract common indices like max-displacement, total-distance, etc. In addition we will perform repeated behavioral assays (such as 'Flight Initiation Distance') to characterize individual specific behavioral type and use nest-camera monitoring for characterizing of their diet and movement. Accounting for age, sex, and families we will investigate if these behavioral types affect foraging and the links between groups and the behavior. By comparing behavioral types within families, (and in the future also cross-fostering chicks swapping manipulations between nests of parent's with known behavioral types) we will investigate the heritability of behavioral types.
This study has can potentially advance our understanding the behavior and the heritability of free-ranging barn owls. These insights can inform how we manage this system and promote sustainable agriculture management as well as advance basic ecological research.
