ArticleScientific reports2016
Predator foraging altitudes reveal the structure of aerial insect communities.
Article in Scientific reports, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 61 citations in OpenAlex.
- An adhesive drone trap to study the flight altitude preferences of winged ants.Current zoology · 2025Article
- Eleonora's falcon trophic interactions with insects within its breeding range: A systematic review.Open life sciences · 2025Review
- Ecological niche divergence or ecological niche partitioning in a widespread Neotropical bird lineage.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Ecological niche divergence or ecological niche partitioning in a widespread Neotropical bird lineage.PeerJ · 2024Article
- Evaluating the effects of moonlight on the vertical flight profiles of three western palaearctic swifts.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Quantifying long-term phenological patterns of aerial insectivores roosting in the Great Lakes region using weather surveillance radar.Global change biology · 2023Article
- The development of an unsupervised hierarchical clustering analysis of dual-polarization weather surveillance radar observations to assess nocturnal insect abundance and diversity.Remote sensing in ecology and conservation · 2022Article
- Central-place foraging poses variable constraints year-round in a neotropical migrant.Movement ecology · 2022Article
- Migration ecology of western gray catbirds.Movement ecology · 2021Article
- Common noctules exploit low levels of the aerosphere.Royal Society open science · 2019Article
- Insectivorous Birds Are Attracted by Plant Traits Induced by Insect Egg Deposition.Journal of chemical ecology · 2018Article
- Insectivorous birds consume an estimated 400-500 million tons of prey annually.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2018Article
- Does wing reduction influence the relationship between altitude and insect body size? A case study using New Zealand's diverse stonefly fauna.Ecology and evolution · 2018Article
- Weak population structure in the antPeerJ · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The atmosphere is populated by a diverse array of dispersing insects and their predators. We studied aerial insect communities by tracking the foraging altitudes of an avian insectivore, the Purple Martin (Progne subis). By attaching altitude loggers to nesting Purple Martins and collecting prey delivered to their nestlings, we determined the flight altitudes of ants and other insects. We then tested hypotheses relating ant body size and reproductive ecology to flight altitude. Purple Martins flew up to 1,889 meters above ground, and nestling provisioning trips ranged up to 922 meters. Insect communities were structured by body size such that species of all sizes flew near the ground but only light insects flew to the highest altitudes. Ant maximum flight altitudes decreased by 60% from the lightest to the heaviest species. Winged sexuals of social insects (ants, honey bees, and termites) dominated the Purple Martin diet, making up 88% of prey individuals and 45% of prey biomass. By transferring energy from terrestrial to aerial food webs, mating swarms of social insects play a substantial role in aerial ecosystems. Although we focus on Purple Martins and ants, our combined logger and diet method could be applied to a range of aerial organisms.
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