Q27 - Diet Differences Between Island and Mainland Chough Populations

Theoretical A Real exam question - full text reproduced under IBO's CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license

The bird Red-billed Chough has a wide diet. It lives on the oceanic Spanish island La Palma (IS) and on mainland Spain (MA). The bird’s diet on IS and MA was compared (Fig.). As a food source, invertebrates are rich in protein and lipid, whereas fleshy fruit is rich in carbohydrates. IS-nestlings have more poorly developed feather barbs than MA-nestlings. A, frequency of occurrence in habitat of animal groups; B, chough nestling diet (relative abundance of food item in diet) (from left: Insects, Other arthropods, Other animals, Fleshy fruit, and Seeds).

Figure 1. Figure 1.

Using the information and data, determine which of the statements are true or which are false.

A. Generally, food of animal origin is more scarce on IS than on MA

B. Mainland nestlings have a wider food niche than island populations

C. In general, insects are the favorite food of nestlings

D. Island nestlings are expected to have a faster growth rate and shorter generation time than mainland nestlings

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Question reproduced from IBO 2015, Theoretical Exam A, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 - attributed to the International Biology Olympiad. Open the full exam PDF · Community solutions (unofficial)