{"id":3101,"date":"2014-09-27T18:18:16","date_gmt":"2014-09-27T23:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=3101"},"modified":"2014-09-27T18:18:16","modified_gmt":"2014-09-27T23:18:16","slug":"david-vs-goliath-how-small-birds-compete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/david-vs-goliath-how-small-birds-compete\/","title":{"rendered":"David vs. Goliath: How small birds compete<img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3104\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Sparkling-Violetear-Mulauco-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3104\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3104\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Sparkling-Violetear-Mulauco-2.jpg\" alt=\"A new study of fights between birds, including hummingbirds like this sparkling violetear, shows how smaller birds can evolve the ability to win fights against larger ones. (Photo credit: Queen\u2019s University)\" width=\"400\" height=\"254\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Sparkling-Violetear-Mulauco-2.jpg 400w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Sparkling-Violetear-Mulauco-2-300x190.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3104\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A new study of fights between birds, including hummingbirds like this sparkling violetear, shows<br \/>how smaller birds can evolve the ability to win fights against larger ones. (Photo credit: Queen\u2019s University)<\/p><\/div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">One might think that larger birds invariably win fights with smaller ones, but a new study explains why that\u00a0is not always the case.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Researchers studied vultures at carcasses, hummingbirds at nectar sources, as well as antbirds and woodcreepers at army ant swarms to discover that some small birds have evolved ways to beat their opponents. These include enhanced maneuverability, new fighting techniques, and more well-developed talons.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The researchers found that\u00a0the more distantly related the bird species were to each other, the more likely the smaller birds were to win, suggesting that the advantages of large size &#8211; at least as far as fighting goes &#8211; are more likely to break down over evolutionary time.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.plosone.org\/article\/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0108741\" target=\"_blank\">Original research paper<\/a><\/span>\u00a0published in <em>PLOS ONE\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0<strong>September 24, 2014<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Paul Martin, Department of Biology, Queen\u2019s University<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One might think that larger birds invariably win fights with smaller ones, but a new study explains why that\u00a0is not always the case. Researchers studied vultures at carcasses, hummingbirds at nectar sources, as well as antbirds and woodcreepers at army ant swarms to discover that some small birds have evolved ways to beat their opponents. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[170,113,114,1274,917,909,50],"class_list":["post-3101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-biodiversity","tag-biology","tag-birds","tag-dna","tag-evolution","tag-genetics","tag-ontario"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Sparkling-Violetear-Mulauco-2.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-O1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3108,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3101\/revisions\/3108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}