Does the concept of generations apply to birds? Aplomado Falcons were succesfully reintroduced to the South Texas area 17 years ago. In that period how many successive generations of falcons are there likely to be? Or does the concept even apply? Is there a comparable bird concept? Thanks.
-
Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.
Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
bird generations? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter ehrodz
- Start date
Off the top of my head, I would think a “generation” in ornithology would vary from species to species depending on (average) age of first breeding. The great majority of small birds breed at 1 year of age so in their cases each year’s production of offspring would constitute a new generation. In other species--mostly large--which don’t normally breed until their 2nd , 3rd, 4th, 5th, whatever year, new generations would be produced at the corresponding multi-year intervals. But, having said all this, I don’t know if the term “generation” is used much in day-to-day field biology. Time, I think, for a professional biologist to come along & give us the facts.
Last edited:
MJB
Well-known member
chris butterworth
aka The Person Named Above
I would think "generations", appertaining to birds, would be the same as for people - 1 set of parents > 1st gen ( offspring ) > 2nd gen. > 3rd gen etc so, if the Aplomado Falcons bred in their first year of introduction, and their decendants bred in each successive year then there would be 16 generations after 17 years. The amount of time that a bird takes to acheive breeding condition doesn't come into the equasion - after the first set of offspring have bred.
Chris
Chris
Re your analogy with human beings, I’m not sure I’m following your reasoning here, but are you arguing that if human parents had 3 children, say, at year intervals each of which produced offspring of its own immediately upon reaching reproductive age, that each year’s output of grandchildren would constitute a separate generation? That makes very little sense to me.
King Edward
Well-known member
I think the concept of generations is difficult to apply when adults are long lived and might breed repeatedly for many years, quite likely continuing to reproduce at the same time as their offspring and grand-offspring could also be breeding. You could also have breeding between individuals of quite different ages, so then what generation would the offspring be?
So for small songbirds, with large numbers of offspring and high annual mortality, it might be reasonable to talk about one generation per year. But probably not for species such as the Falcons in the original post, where a substantial proportion of each year's offspring are likely to be produced by birds which have already bred in previous years.
So for small songbirds, with large numbers of offspring and high annual mortality, it might be reasonable to talk about one generation per year. But probably not for species such as the Falcons in the original post, where a substantial proportion of each year's offspring are likely to be produced by birds which have already bred in previous years.
