Caracterização dos ninhos de aves do Brasil: uma revisão sistemática da literatura

Abstract

Brazil is one of the most important countries in the world for bird conservation, home to around 1.970 taxon. Among vertebrates, birds are the best nest builders, which serve as a container for eggs, for the growth of nestlings and as a dormitory, outside the reproduction period. The nests are built with materials of plant origin, making the different parts of the nest structure such as the external layer, fixation layer, structural layer and covering layer. However, considering the scarcity of information about the plant materials present in the nest, the objectives of this study were: (1) to identify the plant materials present in the nests; (2) characterize the types of bird nests and (3) quantify the plant materials used to build the nest. To this end, a bibliographic search was carried out in the Scopus and Web of Science databases, identifying documents that included information about the plant materials used in nest construction. In total, 55 articles were found with information about bird species, plant material and the type of nest, which were imported into the R software, organized and processed by the Bibliometrix program. To analyze the results, the Biblioshiny package was used. Of the 55 articles found, the majority were published in 2017 (n=7). However, recently the topic has been little addressed (2023, n=1). In the articles analyzed, 18 plant materials used by birds in building nests were recorded. The most abundant material were twigs and twigs, used by 24 species of birds, followed by leaves, used by 21 species. The least used were bark, straw, cotton, plant fluff, feathered seeds and vines. The most used types of nest were platform, basket, retort, dome, gallery and bag, used by 50 species. Most basket nests were built from leaves, radicles/roots, stems, mosses and fibers. The platform-shaped nests were made with twigs/sticks and grasses. Many species build nests with the exterior made of only one material. The simplest with sticks and the most complex with robust vegetation, usually reeds, grasses or leaves. Such results indicate a wide variety of plant material, despite this great diversity, there are few studies on this topic. Many studies only refer to bird reproduction, often limiting information to the size and shape of the nest.