Keywords
green spaces
La Plata city
location on branches
nests
trees
Abstract
The Monk Parakeet Myiopsitta monachus has colonized cities in several regions of the world. We aimed to assess the current status of the population of Myiopsitta monachus in La Plata city (Buenos Aires Province), Argentina, located within the original distribution range of the species. We aimed to describe the characteristics of the nests and the trees where they were built, and to assess changes over time. We surveyed all the tree groves in green spaces and recorded 671 nests and 1,344 chambers in 288 trees. Most of the trees where Myiopsitta monachus nested corresponded to Eucalyptus sp., while the rest corresponded to Araucaria angustifolia, Pinus sp., and Platanus sp. Most nests had only one chamber, and were built on primary branches and in the first third of the branch. Between 2008 and 2016, the number of nests and trees with nests was tripled, and the number of chambers was quadrupled. The relative percentage of nests with a single chamber decreased throughout the period studied. Our observations support the hypothesis that Monk Parakeets tend to increase the number of chambers per nest rather than build new nests.
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