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But I will: The authors looked at several bird species and found that all but two of them declined in cicada emergence years. The two species that increased in population were both brood parasites (which means they lay their eggs in the nests of other species and let the other species raise their chicks). A breeding pair that is parasitized this way suffers severe reproductive losses due to the parasite chick hogging all the food resources or straight-up killing it's nestmates (http://the-scorpion-and-the-frog.blogspot.com/2012/04/it-doesnt-always-pay-to-kill-your.html). So an abundance of cicadas could feed overly hungry parasitic birds, which may lay more eggs and cause a decline in all of their host species' populations.
...But that's just my own personal hand-waving...
Thanks for the interesting post, Sarah! I knew the cicada life cycle is supposed to be based on prime numbers, but the idea that it would affect bird populations is really intriguing. It's amazing that it's not a general decline but is synchronized with the cicadas. Did they speculate about how it might happen? Is it just a neat population dynamics effect or is there supposed to be some kind of mechanistic basis?
Nice movie project by the way, I've decided to back it