Age-specificity in territory quality and spatial structure in a wild bird population

Journal article

Age influences behaviour, survival, and reproduction; hence variation in population age structure can affect population-level processes. The extent of spatial age structure may be important in driving spatially-variable demography, particularly when space-use is linked to reproduction, yet it is not well understood. We use long-term data from a wild bird population to quantify covariance between territory quality and age and examine spatial age structure. We find associations between age and aspects of territory quality, but little evidence for spatial age structure compared to the spatial structure of territory quality and reproductive output. We also report little between-year repeatability of spatial age structure compared to structure in reproductive output. We suggest that high breeding site fidelity among individuals that survive between years, yet frequent territory turnover driven by high mortality and immigration rates, limits the association between age and territory quality and weakens overall spatial age structure. Greater spatial structure and repeatability in reproductive output compared to age suggests that habitat quality may be more important in driving spatially-variable demography than age in this system. We suggest that the framework developed here can be used in other taxa to assess spatial age structure, particularly in longer-lived species where we predict from our findings there may be greater structure.

Authors: Woodman, J; Cole, E; Firth, JA; Sheldon, B

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Journal: American Naturalist
• Volume: 207
• Issue: 1
• Publication date: 2025-11-07
• Acceptance date: 2025-06-06
• DOI: 10.1086/738329
• EISSN: 1537-5323
• ISSN: 0003-0147
• Language: English
• Keywords: territory choice; age structure; breeding density; parus major; spatially-variable demography; territory quality