Weather effects on nestling survival of great tits vary according to the developmental stage

Organisms change breeding investments as a function of the environment, thereby maximizing reproductive success. Climate change studies of avian life-history have long focused on plasticity of laying dates and clutch sizes in response to weather conditions prior to clutch initiation. By contrast, effects of unpredictable weather events occurring after initial reproductive decisions are made have largely been ignored, despite becoming increasingly important with ongoing climate change. We studied the detrimental effects of fluctuations in temperature and precipitation during various nesting phases of great tits (Parus major), identifying the developmental age windows where weather fluctuations affected hatching, nestling mass and fledging success. We used a longitudinal (8-year) dataset of great tits breeding in next boxes in southern Germany and applied a recently introduced explorative approach that does not require a priori assumptions on the time windows (range of ages) over which we...