ESTUDIO DE LAS TÉCNICAS DE FORRAJEO DE LA TYRANNIDAE EN DIFERENTES FORMACIONES VEGETALES DEL BOSQUE SECO TUMBESINO

Abstract

Plant structure complexity is considered to be the main factor in charge of sustaining the diversity of species, and as such, influences their foraging behavior. Due to the lack of updated and specific information in the Tumbesian Region of Ecuador, this paper focuses on the study of foraging techniques of Tyranid species and their relationship with the vegetation cover of the strata. As sample of the study, two locations of the Tumbesian Dry Forest were chosen, Bosque Protector Cerro Blanco and Ancón, which represent two different plant formations, dry deciduous forest and dry thorn scrub respectively. A data collection was carried out in the study locations, which was carried out through observations of the species and the percentage of vegetation coverage in 2020 during the months of January, February, September and October. Also, a bibliographic review was carried out that allowed to identify the foraging technique used by each of the species found. With the information collected, the existing relationships were evaluated using a logistic regression model. As a result of the analysis, it was obtained that the 7 foraging techniques of the 21 registered species are not influenced by the characteristics of the vegetation. Although it is theoretically known that there is a relationship between foraging techniques and habitat structure, it is believed that the results of this study did not show strong associations between them because the sampling time was very short.