Long-term effects of early nutrition and environmental matching on developmental and personality traits in zebra finches

Developmental plasticity is a key feature of many organisms and individuals can benefit from early programming to optimize their phenotypes for the expected environmental conditions. However, environmental conditions may sometimes change unexpectedly. Mismatches between early and adult life, for example, can have important repercussions for adult phenotypes, potentially leading to better performance under matched than mismatched conditions as predicted by the predictive adaptive response hypothesis. We conducted a long-term experimental manipulation of dietary conditions in a population of zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata. Broods were exposed to two early nutritional treatments until independence and we used a split-brood design to independently manipulate nutritional conditions after independence to create matched and mismatched nutritional environments in later life. Developmental trajectories of all individuals were followed for more than 5 years and we scored behavioural responses...