Manuscript Title:

NESTING ECOLOGY, BREEDING BEHAVIOUR AND FACTORS AFFECTING OVERALL BREEDING SUCCESS OF ACRIDOTHERES TRISTIS: COMMON MYNA IN SOUTHERN LANDSCAPE OF KASHMIR VALLEY, INDIA

Author:

MUSHTAQ AHMED RATHER, Dr. REETU BHANOT

DOI Number:

DOI:10.17605/OSF.IO/8N9YJ

Published : 2023-02-10

About the author(s)

1. MUSHTAQ AHMED RATHER - Research Scholar Department of Zoology, School Of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, CT University Ludhiana, Punjab, India.
2. Dr. REETU BHANOT - Assistant professor, Department of Zoology , School of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, CT university Ludhiana , Punjab India.

Full Text : PDF

Abstract

The height of the nest of common myna was found to vary between 3-8m (5.5±1.04) in the selected transects under study. The nesting success rate was found to be prominent for those nests which were located at an elevated height in all the transects under study. It was observed during the study period in the selected transects that common mynas initiate bonding in early part of spring season and before the finalization of the territories which is preceded by high scale competition for acquisition of suitable nesting sites. Cavity nests were majorly preferred than the natural sites across transects under study. When the weight of nests of common myna in the selected transects was compared using ANOVA , differences in weight of nest of nests between transects was found to be significant and thus led to rejection of null hypothesis(Hₒ) .The F distribution value was found to be 9.416 , and is higher than the Fcrit ( 3.490) and thus validates rejection of null hypothesis .The probability value came to be p-value =0.001 (p-value 0.05), Fcrit= 3.70). As the pvalue is > 0.05, it validated null hypothesis and upholds that there is no significant differences in the average weight of successive eggs .This is equally evidenced by the value of F (2.10) which is lower than the Fcrit value (3.70) and is an indication that no significant difference exists and thus does not reject null hypothesis. In all the transects under study , it was observed that the clutch size of common myna ranged between 3 to 4 eggs but clutch size of 3 eggs were more in sight . The clutch size of first brood was observed to 3.5±0.22 (n=6), of second brood 3.5±0.28 (n=4) and of third brood was found to be 3.33±0.33 (n=3) and showed no significant difference between the successive broods. The incubation period varied slightly among the transects and was found to range between 11-13 days averaged 12 ± 0.57 dS.E in transect Ⅳ, which is an urbanized transect and is characterized by higher ambient temperature


Keywords

Acridotheres Tristis, Clutch Size, Brood, Incubation Period, Hatching, Fledging Period, Fledgling Success Rate.