Adjusting the timing of hatching to changing environmental conditions has fitness costs in blue tits |
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Authors: | Email author" target="_blank">Edward?KluenEmail author Maaike?E?de?Heij Jon?E?Brommer |
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Institution: | (1) Bird Ecology Unit, Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki, PO Box 65, Viikinkaari 1, 00014 Helsinki, Finland |
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Abstract: | After laying the first egg, a bird can, to a certain extent, adjust the hatching date of the brood to environmental conditions.
However, costs of this adjustment have remained largely unexplored. We studied potential costs of hatching delay in a population
of blue tits in southern Finland. We explored the factors underlying hatching delay and investigated the association between
hatching delay, clutch hatchability and female body condition. Finally, we reciprocally cross-fostered a large number of broods
irrespective of their experienced hatching delay to address possible downstream effects of hatching delay on developmental
parameters in offspring. We found that hatching delay was associated with early laying dates and low mean temperatures during
the egg-laying phase. Furthermore, we found evidence that delayed hatching negatively affected the breeding performance. Hatchability
of the clutch was lowered and the breeding female was energetically impaired, resulting in smaller clutch sizes, lower female
body mass at hatching and lowered survival of nestlings reared in nests that had experienced a long hatching delay. In addition,
delayed hatching had a significant negative effect on the body mass of nestlings prior to fledging. However, ultimately we
did not find evidence that delayed hatching affected survival of the breeding female nor recruitment of fledglings in the
local breeding population. Our study demonstrates that environmental conditions during egg laying can have lasting effects
throughout the breeding and nestling phase. Furthermore, our results emphasize the importance of energetic tradeoffs by breeding
females during the early breeding phase to manage reproductive costs. |
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