Phenological plasticity enables thermal homeostasis in a wild bird population

Shifts in the timing of seasonal events are widely documented biological responses to climate change, but measuring responses on human calendars reveals little about the underlying biological causes of such changes. Here, using six decades of individual-based data from wild great tits Parus major, we show that plasticity in reproductive phenology has enabled stable long-term thermal homeostasis despite marked local warming. This homeostasis has matched the average temperatures at which reproductive success is maximised, thereby synchronising with a key invertebrate food source. Shifting our perspective from analysing the phenological timing of life history events to analysing changes relative to environmental gradients has the potential to shed new light on the causes, mechanisms, and consequences of these shifts by establishing direct links with biologically relevant variables.
, , , # Data from: Phenological plasticity enables thermal homeostasis in a wild bird population

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.51c59zwjn](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.51c59zwjn)

## Description of the data and file structure

This is the data (and) required to replicate the analyses from the manuscript: Phenological plasticity enables thermal homeostasis in a wild bird population. It contains information on the daily mean temperature obtained from the Hadley Center, information on the phenology and fitness of Wytham Woods great tit's, and phenological information on winter moth caterpillars from Wytham Woods.

### Files and variables

#### File: clim_data.csv

**Description:** Daily mean temperature data from the Met Office Hadley Centre. In particular, we used the Central England Temperature dataset

##### Variables

* Date: date
* day: day
* month: month
* year: year
* min: minimum temperature in degree Celsius
* max: maximum temperature in degree Celsius

#### File: gtdata_hd.csv

**Des..., ,