Data and R code from: Nature calls: intelligence and natural foraging style predict welfare problems in captive parrots
Description
Around half of all parrots (a highly threatened order) live in captivity. Here, some species thrive. Others, however, breed poorly or display stereotypic behaviours indicating stress. Using data on the prevalence of three types of stereotypic behaviour in pet (50 species; 1,378 individuals) and aviculture hatch rates (115 species; 10,255 breeding pairs), we applied Phylogenetic Comparative Methods (PCMs) to test hypothesised causes of this variation (relating to species' rarity and constraints on natural behaviour). In the first empirical evidence that high intelligence increases vulnerability to poor captive welfare, species with large relative brain sizes were found to be most at risk of oral and whole-body stereotypic behaviour. This suggests that if they are to be kept in private homes, such parrots must be offered substantially more cognitive stimulation. Self-harming behaviours involving feather damage were predicted by naturally relying on food items that require substantial handling, highlighting inadequacies in captive diets (often highly processed); while relatively low hatch rates in aviculture were predicted by small captive population sizes, potentially due to genetic bottlenecks, inbreeding, and/or low availability of compatible mates. These novel findings should help advance captive parrot husbandry, and inspire further research applying PCMs to understand and improve animal welfare.
Notes
Missing values are coded as NA.
Description of variables
Species_name: Species scientific name
English: Species common name
Outcome variables
FDB: Prevalence of feather-damaging behaviour
OSB: Prevalence of oral stereotypic behaviour
BSB: Prevalence of whole body stereotypic behaviour
Hatch_rate: Captive hatch rates (chicks hatched/breeding pair/year)
Wild biology predictor variables
Max_feed_size: Maximum feeding group size
Communal_roost: Presence/absence of communal roosting when sleeping (yes v no)
Communal_roost_code: As above, but coded 1 = yes, 0 = no
Food_search: Percentage diet requiring extensive food search
Food_handling: Percentage diet requiring extensive food handling
Habitat_breadth: Count of main habitat types in the native range
Diet_breadth: Count of main food types in the native range
Innovation: Total number of feeding innovations reported in the literature (relating to specific geographic regions)
Inn_region: Whether/not a species' native range includes one of the geographic regions mentioned above (1 = yes, 0 = no)
Brain_vol: Species' average endocranial volume (ml)
IUCN_code: Status in the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species (ranked 1-5): Least Concern, Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered.
Hatch_n_breed_pairs: Number of breeding pairs contributing to calculation of captive hatch rates
Nat_fecund: Natural fecundity (product of the median eggs/clutch and clutches/year)
Body_mass: Species' average body mass (g)
Research_effort: Research effort (number of published papers)
Pet parrot population characteristics
Prop_adult: Proportion of a species' population which is adult (v pubescent)
Prop_known: Proportion of a species' population which is of known sex (v unknown)
Prop_female: Proportion of a species' population which is female (v male)
Human_reared: Proportion of a species' population which has been entirely human-reared (v some parental rearing)
Stand_cage: Proportion of a species' population housed in a standard-sized cage (v larger)
Prop_isolated: Proportion of a species' population housed in conspecific social isolation (v some social contact)
Short_feed: Proportion of a species' population with short captive feeding times (v long [>2hrs])
Cap_diet_div: Count of main food types in diet
Early_EE: Early (rearing) enrichment diversity
Current_EE: Current enrichment diversity
Files
parrot_comp_data.csv
Files
(16.6 MB)
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Additional details
Related works
- Is derived from
- 10.5281/zenodo.5526134 (DOI)