Abstract. Understanding habitat quality for birds is crucial for ecologists and managers, but
few papers have explored the advantages and disadvantages of different ways to measure …

Unlike resident bird species, the population sizes of migratory species can be influenced by
conditions in more than one part of the world. Changes in the numbers of migrant birds …

Birds of prey have been, in comparison to other avian groups, an uncommon study model,
mainly due to the limitations imposed by their conservative life strategy (low population …

The nature and extent of population regulation remains a principal unanswered question for
many types of organisms, despite extensive research. In this paper, we provide a new …

Summary 1 Territory quality may affect individual fitness and contribute to density‐
dependent reproduction, with repercussions on population regulation. We investigated the …

Species usually have to use indirect cues when assessing habitat quality. This means that it
is possible for humans to alter habitats in a way that causes a discrepancy between the cues …

Buffer effects occur when sites vary in quality and fluctuations in population size are mirrored
by large changes in animal numbers in poor-quality sites but only small changes in good …

Most species occupy both high‐and low‐quality habitats throughout their ranges. As habitats
become modified through anthropogenic change, low‐quality habitat may become a more …

The interaction of local populations has been the focus of an increasing number of studies in
the past 30 years. The study of source-sink dynamics has especially generated much …

Summary 1 The hypothesis of site‐dependent population regulation predicts that birds
utilize available nesting sites in a pre‐emptive (ideal despotic) manner, leading to density …