Férias na Amazônia? Uso e seleção de hábitat de uma ave migratória, a andorinha-azul (Progne subis, Hirundinidae), durante o período de invernagem na Amazônia brasileira

Abstract

The Brazilian Amazon Rainforest is part of the largest humid tropical forest in the world and it houses the greatest biodiversity found on the planet. It hosts not only native species, but also migratory species, such as the Purple Martin, Progne subis. This species is part of the group of migratory aerial insectivores that show marked population declines in the last decades, that are not yet fully understood. Despite being well studied in terms of their breeding area, they have not yet been studied in their wintering area. Therefore, in this study we seek to understand how the Purple Martin have used the landscape, whether different types of habitat are being selected and how the information varies between periods of the day, using two contrasting scales. For this, we used a set of points of 33 GPS localizations of individuals and Resource Selection Functions (RSF) implemented with Generalized Linear Models (GLM’s). From this, we describe a pattern of habitat selection for swallows, showing that there are differences in use and selection between day and night. These unprecedented data on the use of the landscape by the Purple Martin, give new directions about their behavior in the wintering areas. These new perspectives are important for the understanding and development of conservation plans, not only for this species, but for aerial insectivorous birds.