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Table 5 A summary of (a) studies inferring House Sparrow population trends from nest-site availability/selection surveys, and (b) studies focusing on population trends and nest site selection/availability

From: A high incidence of non-cavity nesting in an introduced population of House Sparrows suggests that the species should not be constrained by cavity-nest site availability

References

Summary

Reasoning

Weakness of the study in respect to the conclusion drawn

(a)

Sziemer and Holzer (2005), Shaw et al. (2008), Kumar et al. (2015)

High incidence of House Sparrow breeding in low socio-economic areas

Low socio-economic areas have more neglected buildings thus more nesting opportunities

No evidence of nest site limitation in areas of high socio-economic status. Low socio-economic areas could attract House Sparrows through alternative factors, e.g. invertebrate abundance

Wotton et al. (2002)

House Sparrows are more abundant in older building in rural, but not (sub) urban areas

Older, rural buildings are not renovated thus have more crevices for nesting

Public survey data overstates the proportion of older, rural houses available for nesting

Singh et al. (2013), Balaji (2014)

Fewer House Sparrows in urban buildings

Urban buildings are more renovated, thus offer fewer nest sites than rural ones

Studies assume urban areas are more renovated than rural/sub-urban ones without examining the frequency of potential nest-sites in the different settings

(b)

Von Post and Smith (2015)

Although House Sparrows show a preference for nesting under tiles, nest site availability is not a critically limiting resource

No relationship between the availability and addition of preferred or artificial nest sites affected population numbers

 

Wegrzynowicz (2012)

Nest site availability does not affect House Sparrow population trends

No relationship between the number of available nest sites and House Sparrow population number