The two species and their habitats at the study site in Ecuador (Photos by J. Nowakowski) (IMAGE)
Caption
The two species and their habitats at the study site in Ecuador (Photos by J. Nowakowski). The higher elevation species, the Spectacled Whitestart, chooses fragmented forests with few trees and with open spaces comprising patches of bushes and meadows. The lower elevation species, the Slate-throated Whitestart, chooses dark dense montane forest stands. Both species forage in a very similar way by a method called "flush-pursue": a bird uses contrasting plumage, spread tail and wings and pirouetting body movements to visually trigger escapes/flights in insects (hence to flush insects), which are subsequently pursued in air and captured. These two species co-occur in man-made fragmented montane landscape because open habitats preferred by the Spectacled Whitestart are similar to the typical high elevation habitats where this species occurs, and the dark, dense forests are the typical habitats of the Slate-throated Whitestart. Therefore the scientists did not observe any aggression between the two species during foraging: the species occurred next to each other at the same elevation but were spatially separated because they used different habitats. Those habitats are available next to each other due to human activities leading to degradation of the dense montane forest.
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photo by Jacek Nowakowski, the coauthor of the original paper at www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-78804-2
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