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36 results for “early life conditions”
Data for: Early life conditions influence fledging success and subsequent local recruitment rates in a declining migratory songbird, the Whinchat Saxicola rubetra
<ol> <li>Life history traits and environmental conditions influence reproductive success in animals, and consequences of these can influence subsequent survival and recruitment into breeding populations. Understanding influences on demographic rates is required to determine the causes of decline. Migratory species experience spatially and temporally variable conditions across their annual cycle, making identifying where the factors influencing demographic rates operate challenging.</li> <li>Here, we use the Whinchat <em>Saxicola</em> <em>rubetra</em> as a model declining long-distance migrant bird. We analyse 10 years of data from 247 nesting attempts and 2519 post-fledging observations of 1193 uniquely marked nestlings to examine the influence of life history traits, habitat characteristics and weather on survival of young from the nestling stage to local recruitment into the natal population.</li> <li>We detected potential silver spoon effects where conditions during the breeding stage influence subsequent apparent local recruitment rates, with higher recruitment for fledglings from larger broods, and recruitment rate negatively related to rainfall that chicks experienced in-nest. Additionally, extreme temperatures experienced pre- and post-fledging increased fledging success and recruitment rate. However, we could not determine whether this was driven by temperature influencing mortality during the post-fledging period or later in the annual cycle.</li> <li>Brood size declined with hatching date. In-nest survival increased with brood size and was highest at local temperature extremes. Furthermore, nest survival was highest at nests surrounded with 40–60% vegetation cover of Bracken <em>Pteridium</em> <em>aquilinum</em> within 50m of the nest.</li> <li>Our results show that breeding phenology and environmental factors may influence fledging success and recruitment in songbird populations, with conditions experienced during the nestling stage influencing local recruitment rates in Whinchats (i.e. silver spoon effect). Recruitment rates are key drivers of songbird population dynamics. Our results help identify some of the likely breeding season mechanisms that could be important population drivers.</li> </ol>
Data from: Quantity discrimination, decision-making, and the role of early-life conditions in a lizard
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Data for: Early life conditions influence fledging success and subsequent local recruitment rates in a declining migratory songbird, the Whinchat Saxicola rubetra
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Population density and timing of breeding mediate effects of early life conditions on recruitment
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Temporal variation in early-life conditions impacts on later-life levels of infection in sex specific ways. Associated data and code
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Data from: Early-life conditions determine the between-individual heterogeneity in plasticity of calving date in reindeer
1. Phenotypic plasticity has become a key-concept to enhance our ability to understand the adaptive potential of species to track the pace of climate change by allowing a relatively rapid adjustment of life history traits. 2. Recently, population-level trends of an earlier timing of reproduction to climate change have been highlighted in many taxa but only few studies have explicitly taken into consideration between-individual heterogeneity in phenotypic plasticity. 3. Using a long-term data of a semi-domesticated reindeer (<i>Rangifer tarandus</i>) population, we demonstrated that females differed greatly in their mean calving date but only slightly in the magnitude of their plastic response to the amount of precipitation in April. We also showed that despite the absence of a population trend, females individually responded to the amount of precipitation in April by delaying their calving dates. 4. Females' calving date under average climatic conditions was best predicted by their birthdate, their physical condition in March-April-May before their first calving season and by their first calving date. The degree of their phenotypic plasticity was not dependent on any of the females' attributes early in life tested in this study. However, females who delayed their calving dates in response to a higher amount of precipitation in April slightly produced less calves over their reproductive life. 5. These findings confirmed that early life conditions of female reindeer can shape their phenotypic value during reproductive life, supporting the importance of maternal effects in shaping individuals' lifetime reproductive success. Whether females differed in the magnitude of their plastic response to climatic changes has received contrasted responses for various ungulate species. This calls for more research to enhance our understanding of the underlying mechanisms leading to the complexity of plastic responses among populations to cope with current climate change.
Data from: Do environmental conditions experienced in early life affect recruitment age and performance at first breeding in common goldeneye females?
Environmental conditions experienced early in life may have long-term impacts on life history traits and reproductive performance. We investigated whether ambient temperature experienced during the first two to four weeks of life and weather severity during the first two winters affected recruitment age and relative timing of breeding in the year of recruitment in female common goldeneyes (Bucephala clangula). Our sample consisted of 141 female recruits hatched in a study population in central Finland between 1985 and 2013 and captured later as breeders. About 56% of the recruited females bred for the first time when 2 years old (range 2-6 years). Individuals facing colder ambient temperatures during the first two to four weeks posthatch or more severe winter conditions during the first two winters did not recruit at an older age. Nor did maternal characteristics, relative hatch date or nest site availability affect recruitment age. For females that recruited at 2 years old, the date of first breeding was usually late relative to the population mean that year (mean difference 6.9 days, range -7 to 21 days). Our results suggest developmental buffering enables female goldeneye ducklings to mitigate the impacts of adverse environmental conditions experienced during the first weeks of life, at least in terms of first breeding.
Data from: Parasitism in early life: environmental conditions shape intra-brood variation in responses to infection
Parasites play key ecological and evolutionary roles through the costs they impose on their host. In wild populations, the effect of parasitism is likely to vary considerably with environmental conditions, which may affect the availability of resources to hosts for defense. However, the interaction between parasitism and prevailing conditions is rarely quantified. In addition to environmental variation acting on hosts, individuals are likely to vary in their response to parasitism, and the combined effect of both may increase heterogeneity in host responses. Offspring hierarchies, established by parents in response to uncertain rearing conditions, may be an important source of variation between individuals. Here, we use experimental antiparasite treatment across 5 years of variable conditions to test how annual population productivity (a proxy for environmental conditions) and parasitism interact to affect growth and survival of different brood members in juvenile European shags (Phalacrocorax aristotelis). In control broods, last-hatched chicks had more plastic growth rates, growing faster in more productive years. Older siblings grew at a similar rate in all years. Treatment removed the effect of environment on last-hatched chicks, such that all siblings in treated broods grew at a similar rate across environmental conditions. There were no differences in nematode burden between years or siblings, suggesting that variation in responses arose from intrinsic differences between chicks. Whole-brood growth rate was not affected by treatment, indicating that within-brood differences were driven by a change in resource allocation between siblings rather than a change in overall parental provisioning. We show that gastrointestinal parasites can be a key component of offspring's developmental environment. Our results also demonstrate the value of considering prevailing conditions for our understanding of parasite effects on host life-history traits. Establishing how environmental conditions shape responses to parasitism is important as environmental variability is predicted to increase.
Data from: Trophy hunting mediates sex-specific associations between early-life environmental conditions and adult mortality in bighorn sheep
1. Environmental conditions during early development, from conception to sexual maturity, can have lasting consequences on fitness components. Although adult lifespan often accounts for much of the variation in fitness in long-lived animals, we know little about how early environment affects adult lifespan in the wild, and even less about whether these effects differ between the sexes. 2. Using data collected over 45 years from wild bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis), we investigated the effects of early environment on adult mortality in both sexes, distinguishing between natural and anthropogenic sources of mortality. 3. We used the average body mass of yearlings (at about 15 months of age) as a yearly index of environmental quality. We first examined sex differences in natural mortality responses to early environment by censoring harvested males in the year they were shot. We then investigated sex differences in the effects of early environment on overall mortality (natural and hunting mortality combined). Finally, we used path analysis to separate the direct influence of early environment from indirect influences, mediated by age at first reproduction, adult mass and horn length. 4. As early environmental conditions improved, natural adult mortality decreased in both sexes, although for males the effect was not statistically supported. Sex differences in the effects of early environment on adult mortality were detected only when natural and hunting mortality were pooled. Males that experienced favorable early environment had longer horns as adults and died earlier because of trophy hunting, which does not mimic natural mortality. Females that experienced favorable early environment started to reproduce earlier and early primiparity was associated with reduced mortality, suggesting a silver-spoon effect. 5. Our results show that early conditions affect males and females differently because of trophy hunting. These findings highlight the importance of considering natural and anthropogenic environmental factors across different life stages to understand sex differences in mortality.
Data from: Sex-specific fitness effects of unpredictable early life conditions are associated with DNA methylation in the avian glucocorticoid receptor
Organisms can adapt to variable environments by using environmental cues to modulate developmental gene expression. In principle, maternal influences can adaptively adjust offspring phenotype when early life and adult environments match, but they may be maladaptive when future environments are not predictable. One of the best-studied 'maternal effects' is through modification of the offspring's hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, the neuroendocrine system that controls responses to stress. In addition to the direct transfer of glucocorticoids from mother to offspring, offspring HPA function and other phenotypes can also be affected by epigenetic modifications like DNA methylation of the glucocorticoid receptor promoter. Here we examine how among-year variation in rainfall is related to DNA methylation during development and fitness in adulthood in the superb starling (Lamprotornis superbus), which lives in a climatically unpredictable environment where early life and adult environments are unlikely to match. We found that DNA methylation in the putative promoter of the glucocorticoid receptor gene is reduced in chicks – particularly in males – born following drier prebreeding periods. Additionally, DNA methylation is lower in males that become breeders than those that never breed. However, there is no relationship in females between DNA methylation and the likelihood of dispersing from the natal group to breed elsewhere. These results suggest that early life conditions may positively affect fitness in a sex-specific manner through chemical modification of an HPA-associated gene. This study is the first to show that epigenetic modifications during early life may influence the fitness of free-living organisms adapted to unpredictable environments.
Data from: Organizing effects of adverse early-life condition on body mass, compensatory growth and reproduction: experimental studies in rock pigeons
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How fitness consequences of early-life conditions vary with age in a long-lived seabird: a Bayesian multivariate analysis of age-specific reproductive values
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Data from: Sex-specific fitness effects of unpredictable early life conditions are associated with DNA methylation in the avian glucocorticoid receptor
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Data from: Early-life conditions determine the between-individual heterogeneity in plasticity of calving date in reindeer
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Data from: Trophy hunting mediates sex-specific associations between early-life environmental conditions and adult mortality in bighorn sheep
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Data from: Parasitism in early life: environmental conditions shape intra-brood variation in responses to infection
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Data from: Experiencing El Niño conditions during early life reduces recruiting probabilities but not adult survival
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Data from: Do environmental conditions experienced in early life affect recruitment age and performance at first breeding in common goldeneye females?
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Data from: Sex differences in adult mortality rate mediated by early-life environmental conditions
Variation in sex differences is affected by both genetic and environmental variation, with rapid change in sex differences being more likely due to environmental change. One case of rapid change in sex differences is human lifespan, which has become increasingly female-biased in recent centuries. Long-term consequences of variation in the early-life environment may, in part, explain such variation in sex differences, but whether the early-life environment mediates sex differences in life-history traits is poorly understood in animals. Combining longitudinal data on 60 cohorts of pre-industrial Finns with environmental data, we show that the early-life environment is associated with sex differences in adult mortality and expected lifespan. Specifically, low infant survival rates and high rye yields (an important food source) in early-life are associated with female-bias in adult lifespan. These results support the hypothesis that environmental change has the potential to affect sex differences in life-history traits in natural populations of long-lived mammals.
Early-life environmental conditions influence parasitism at adulthood and life-history of a cuckoo host
<p>Environmental conditions experienced by individuals early in life can extend into adult phenotypes with potential fitness consequences. Early life environmental effects can be relevant for hosts because bad early life conditions may impair host cognition increasing the risk of future parasitism or lowering parasite recognition. Here we provide a first test of this possibility by using data from a 16-year study of individually marked female magpie <i>Pica pica</i> hosts for which we know natal and adult environments, occurrence of costly great spotted cuckoo <i>Clamator glandarius</i> parasitism, egg discrimination ability and life history in detail. Females born in warmer years were more likely to be parasitized in adulthood and produced fewer offspring throughout their life. Egg discrimination behavior and lifespan of magpies were not influenced by the quality of natal environments. These results provide support for the idea that there exists annual environmental variation potentially promoting cohort effects in magpie hosts that may have an impact on cuckoo-host co-evolutionary dynamics.</p>
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