David J. Kelly

TL;DR: This paper proposes a compositional mixture of the food sources corrected for various metabolic factors based on the isometric log‐ratio transform, which can apply a range of time series and non‐parametric smoothing relationships.

TL;DR: It is shown that, over and above the effect of body mass, the most important factor enabling longer lifespan is the ability to fly, which was true for non-volant species, where lifespan correlated positively with both arboreality and fossoriality.

TL;DR: The AVONET dataset as discussed by the authors contains comprehensive functional trait data for all birds, including six ecological variables, 11 continuous morphological traits, and information on range size and location, from 90,020 individuals of 11,009 extant bird species sampled from 181 countries.

TL;DR: Results from laboratory chicks are outlined that show neophobia to be easily deactivated by experience, which renders it unlikely to be an important force in wild birds, and evidence that the process of incorporation of novel food into the diet is not a simple one-stage process but includes at least four steps of assessment is reported.

TL;DR: It is argued that there is no conclusive evidence that countershading per se provides any selective advantage in terrestrial or aerial environments, however, the highly refined adaptations of some marine organisms to match the different background light conditions against which they are set when viewed from different aspects strongly suggest an adaptive advantage to countershaders in these environments.