BREEDING BIOLOGY OF THE TAIWAN BARBET (MEGALAIMA NUCHALIS) IN TAIPEI BOTANICAL GARDEN.

We studied the breeding biology of the Taiwan Barbet (Megalaima nuchalis) in the Taipei Botanical Garden (TBG) during the 2008 and 2009 breeding seasons. Breeding pairs produced a mean of 1.8 broods per season and had a mean clutch size of 3.0 eggs. The mean incubation period was 13.8 days, and both parents shared incubation. The mean nestling period was ~27.5 days, considerably shorter than that of other Asian barbets. The shorter nestling period may be related to the low fledgling success rate, multiple broods per season, and constant animal matter food in TBG throughout the entire nesting period. Ambient temperature influenced the amount of time spent by adults inside the nest cavity incubating eggs and brooding nestlings. Adult males provided more food to nestlings than adult females, while adult females cleaned the nest more often than males. The overall egg-to-fledgling success rate was low at 32.8%, because of infertile eggs and failure of eggs with embryos to hatch, abandonment, anthropogenic disturbances, predation, weather disturbances, and other unknown factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]