Dehydration risk is associated with reduced nest attendance and hatching success in a cooperatively breeding bird, the southern pied babbler Turdoides bicolor

We used a novel combination of a non-invasive doubly-labelled water technique, nest temperature data and field-based behaviour observations to test effects of temperature, rainfall, and group size on physiology and behaviour during incubation in southern pied babblers Turdoides bicolor, a cooperatively-breeding passerine endemic to the arid savanna regions of southern Africa.