Data from: Parental care mitigates carry-over effects of poor early conditions on offspring growth

Poor developmental conditions can have long-lasting negative effects on offspring phenotypes, but impacts often differ among species. Contrasting responses may reflect disparities in experimental protocols among single-species studies or inherent differences among species in their sensitivity to early conditions and/or ability to mitigate negative impacts. We used a common experimental protocol to assess and compare the role of parental care in mitigating effects of poor early conditions on offspring among four sympatric bird species in the wild. We experimentally induced low incubation temperatures and examined effects on embryonic developmental rates, hatching success, nestling growth rates, and parental responses. We examined the generality of these effects across four species that differ in their phylogenetic history, breeding ecology, and life histories. We found that cooling led to delayed hatching in all species, but carry-over effects on offspring differed among species. Parents of some but not all species increased their offspring provisioning rates in response to experimental cooling with critical benefits for offspring growth rates. Our study shows for the first time that species exhibit clear differences in the degree to which they are affected by poor early conditions. Observed differences among species demonstrate that parental care is a critical mechanism for mitigating potential negative effects on offspring and suggest that parental responses may be constrained to varying degrees by ecology and life histories.发育条件不佳会对子代表型产生持久的负面影响，但此类影响往往因物种而异。不同物种的响应差异，可能源于单物种研究间实验方案的不一致，或是不同物种本身对早期发育条件的敏感性、以及缓解负面影响的能力存在固有差异。本研究采用统一的实验方案，针对野外环境下4种同域分布鸟类，评估并比较了亲代抚育在缓解早期不良发育条件对子代影响中的作用。我们通过实验诱导产生较低的孵化温度，检测其对胚胎发育速率、孵化成功率、雏鸟生长速率以及亲代行为响应的影响。本研究选取了系统发育历史、繁殖生态与生活史均存在差异的4个物种，以此检验上述效应的普适性。研究发现，低温处理会使所有物种的孵化时间延迟，但对子代的遗留效应（carry-over effects）仍因物种而异。部分而非全部物种的亲代会提升对子代的食物供给速率，以响应实验诱导的低温，这对子代的生长速率具有关键增益作用。本研究首次证实，不同物种受早期不良发育条件影响的程度存在显著差异。观测到的物种间差异表明，亲代抚育是缓解对子代潜在负面影响的关键机制，同时也提示亲代的行为响应可能会在不同程度上受到其自身生态特征与生活史的制约。