Individual birds advance offspring hatching in response to increased temperature after the start of laying.

Oecologia
Oscar Vedder

Abstract

In seasonally reproducing organisms, timing reproduction to match food availability is key to individual fitness. Ambient temperature functions as an important cue for the timing of the food peak in temperate-zone birds. After laying start, individual birds may still improve synchrony between offspring hatching and food availability by adjusting the onset of incubation to most up-to-date cues about the development of the food source. However, it is unknown whether individuals respond to changes in temperature after the onset of laying, and whether individuals adjust incubation onset independent of clutch size. Here, I show in free-living blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) that experimental heating of nestboxes in the laying phase resulted in increased duration of nocturnal incubation bouts prior to clutch completion, leading to earlier hatching of eggs and increased hatching asynchrony. Experimental heating did not affect the number of laying gaps, egg volume and clutch size, nor were any carry-over effects on offspring detected. These results are best explained as a response to increased temperature acting as a cue for an advanced food-peak, rather than a relief of energetic constraints, because improved energetic conditions woul...Continue Reading

References

Aug 17, 2001·Journal of Biological Rhythms·A DawsonG F Ball
Oct 1, 1954·The Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology·C H LACK, D G WAILLING
Apr 17, 2007·Poultry Science·G M Fasenko
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Oct 28, 2011·The American Naturalist·Andreas Nord, Jan-Åke Nilsson
Jan 6, 2012·The American Naturalist·Sonja V SchaperMarcel E Visser

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Citations

Aug 21, 2015·Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society·Diego P VázquezFrancisco Bozinovic
Jun 4, 2016·General and Comparative Endocrinology·Suvi RuuskanenMarcel E Visser

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