DOI: 10.5061/dryad.pk0p2nh38
title: Movement strategies of neotropical nectarivorous birds: Insights from high-Andean hummingbirds and flowerpiercers

description: Tropical nectarivorous birds should have flexible movement behaviors in
 response to the spatiotemporal availability of flowers. In the Neotropics,
 hummingbirds (Trochilidae) have diet breadths constrained by
 trait-matching with flowers, while nectar-robbing flowerpiercers
 (Thraupidae) typically drink nectar from holes pierced at the flower’s
 base. Distinct movement patterns for these two bird families would be
 expected from optimal foraging theory due to differences in dietary
 specialization and behavioral flexibility, yet little is known about the
 daily movement patterns of tropical nectarivores. We used fine-resolution
 tracking data from an automated radio telemetry grid to compare movement
 patterns between hummingbirds and flowerpiercers in high-Andean mountain
 ecosystems, and obtained an accumulated total of 435,513 location
 estimates and 452 tracking days from 22 individuals across six bird
 species. Our results indicate that hummingbirds exhibit a greater
 diversity of movement behaviors compared to flowerpiercers, with varying
 space use and recursion patterns that are characteristic of sedentary,
 commuting/traplining, and exploratory strategies, whereas most species of
 flowerpiercers were classified as central-place foragers. However, there
 is substantial variation in daily movement metrics and hierarchical
 clustering does not necessarily group together bird families, species, nor
 even individuals as more similar to each other. Flexibility in movement
 behaviors has seldom been described for neotropical nectarivorous birds in
 the wild. It emerges as an important trait to adjust behavior to variable
 local contexts, and may be adaptive for the persistence of pollinators in
 challenging mountain ecosystems, where weather conditions are harsh and
 floral resources are seasonal.
description: # Movement strategies of neotropical nectarivorous birds: Insights from
 high-Andean hummingbirds and flowerpiercers Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.pk0p2nh38](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pk0p2nh38) ##
 Description of the data and file structure This dataset includes all data
 and the necessary code in R scripts to reproduce the results presented in
 the associated paper. ### Files and variables #### File:
 cleaned_tracks.csv **Description:** Location estimates of tracked
 hummingbirds and flowerpiercers. ##### Variables * reloc: Number of
 sequential relocation * No.Nodes: Number of nodes used to estimate
 location * x.est: Estimated x coordinate, projectedEPSG:3116 * y.est:
 Estimated y coordinate, projectedEPSG:3116 * TagId: Unique tag identifier
 * Time.local: Local datetime * bin.2h: Identification of 2h bins used for
 cubic spline smoothing * tag_type: Type of tag used, either LifeTag or
 PowerTag * Tag.start.time: Local datetime for tag deployment *
 x_cs:Estimated x coordinate smoothed with cubic splines,
 projectedEPSG:3116 * y_cs:Estimated y coordinate smoothed with cubic
 splines, projectedEPSG:3116 * distance: Distance from previous relocation,
 in meters * Time.dif: Time difference from previous relocation in seconds
 * speed: Distance divided by time from previous relocation, meters over
 seconds ## Code/software Code used in R version 4.5.0 to generate results
 is available in the file script.R. Check the script for necessary
 packages.