Data from: Parental care mitigates carry-over effects of poor early conditions on offspring growth

Poor developmental conditions can have long-lasting negative effects on offspring phenotypes, but impacts often differ among species. Contrasting responses may reflect disparities in experimental protocols among single-species studies or inherent differences among species in their sensitivity to early conditions and/or ability to mitigate negative impacts. We used a common experimental protocol to assess and compare the role of parental care in mitigating effects of poor early conditions on offspring among 4 sympatric bird species in the wild. We experimentally induced low incubation temperatures and examined effects on embryonic developmental rates, hatching success, nestling growth rates, and parental responses. We examined the generality of these effects across 4 species that differ in their phylogenetic history, breeding ecology, and life histories. We found that cooling led to delayed hatching in all species, but carry-over effects on offspring differed among species. Parents of some but not all species increased their offspring provisioning rates in response to experimental cooling with critical benefits for offspring growth rates. Our study shows for the first time that species exhibit clear differences in the degree to which they are affected by poor early conditions. Observed differences among species demonstrate that parental care is a critical mechanism for mitigating potential negative effects on offspring and suggest that parental responses may be constrained to varying degrees by ecology and life histories.

发育条件不佳会对子代表型产生持久的负面影响，但此类影响往往因物种而异。不同物种间的响应差异，既可能源于单物种研究中实验方案的不一致，也可能源自各物种对早期发育条件的敏感性、以及/或缓解负面影响的能力存在固有区别。本研究采用统一的实验方案，对野外4种同域鸟类物种展开评估与比较，以分析亲本抚育在缓解早期发育不良对子代的影响中所发挥的作用。我们通过实验手段降低孵化温度，检测其对胚胎发育速率、孵化成功率、雏鸟生长速率以及亲本行为响应的影响。本研究所涉4个物种在系统发育历史、繁殖生态学特征及生活史特征上均存在差异，借此我们检验了上述效应的普适性。研究发现，低温处理会导致所有物种的孵化延迟，但对子代的后续效应却因物种而异。部分而非全部物种的亲本会在实验低温处理后提高育雏速率，这对子代的生长速率具有关键益处。本研究首次证实，不同物种受早期发育不良影响的程度存在显著差异。观测到的物种间差异表明，亲本抚育是缓解对子代潜在负面影响的关键机制，同时也提示亲本的响应行为可能在不同程度上受到其生态学特征与生活史特征的制约。