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...生物会依据环境调整繁殖投入，以此最大化繁殖成功率。长期以来，气候变化背景下的鸟类生活史研究多聚焦于产卵前的天气条件对产卵日期与窝卵数可塑性的影响。与之相对，在初始繁殖决策完成后发生的不可预测天气事件所产生的影响，却在很大程度上被忽视了——尽管随着气候变化加剧，这类事件的重要性与日俱增。本研究针对大山雀（Parus major）不同筑巢阶段的温度与降水波动所带来的不利影响展开分析，明确了天气波动会对孵化率、雏鸟体重及出巢成功率产生影响的发育年龄窗口。我们采用了德国南部地区大山雀人工巢箱繁殖的8年纵向数据集，并运用了近年提出的无需先验假设的探索性分析方法，该方法可针对我们所关注的……