Breeding Ecology Of The Rufous-necked Snowfinch Pyrgilauda Ruficollis

Knowledge on species' breeding biology is the building blocks of avian life history theory.Studies of breeding biology of in high-altitude zone facilitated the understanding of the patterns of systematic evolution and adaptive radiation.Rufous-necked Snowfinch(Pyrgilauda ruficollis),are a wide-spread secondary cavity-nesting bird typically inhabiting the high-altitude zone.Pyrgilauda ruficollis is ofen resident in the study area and nested in burrows of black-lipped pikas(Ochotona curzoniae).However,the documented data in respect to this species are limited.The breeding ecology of Rufousnecked Snowfinch were investigated at Maqu and Gahai in the northeast of the QinghaiTibet Plateau.,from May 2018 to August 2018.The main results are as follows: The breeding starting time of Maqu population was earlier than that of Gahai,but the breeding period lasted about 15 days longer than the latter.Neither species had second brood.Neither Rufous-necked Snowfinch showed significant territorial behavior.Incubation period was 11 days to 13 days,only females incubated the eggs and brooded the nestlings,while males exhibited feeding behavior to females.Both parents feed nestlings,the brooding period is 24 days.Neither parent sleeps in the breeding cave.The clutch size of Maqu was 3.63 ± 0.52 and Gahai was 3.43 ± 0.53.There was no significant difference between the two populations.There was no significant difference in the number of nestlings of Maqu and Gahai populations,(Maqu was 2.76 ± 0.83,and Gahai was 2.27 ± 0.79).Brood reduction occurred in both populations,but there was no significant difference between the two populations.Brood reduction were all close to 0.8 per nest.Commonly,the brood size per nest was 4 in both study sites.Maqu has 8 nests accounting for 44.4% and Gahai has 4 nests accounting for 28.6%.The maxium number of nestlings in each nest was 4,and 8 nests with 4 nestlings were found in Maqu population,accounting for 44.4%.Garhai population has 4 nests,accounting for 28.6%.All the nests managed to fly out at least one nestling.Our study provides basic data for understanding the evolution of avian life-history strategies in high-altitude environments and provides valuable scientific evidence for the conservation of alpine meadow ecosystems.