Mares Rafael, Doutrelant Claire, Paquet Matthieu, Spottiswoode Claire N, Covas Rita
CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, InBio, Laboratório Associado, University of Porto, Campus Agrário de Vairão, 4485-661 Vairão, Portugal.
INDICASAT-AIP, Ciudad del Saber, Panama City 0843-01103, Panama.
R Soc Open Sci. 2017 Sep 13;4(9):170835. doi: 10.1098/rsos.170835. eCollection 2017 Sep.
Animal reproductive cycles are commonly triggered by environmental cues of favourable breeding conditions. In arid environments, rainfall may be the most conspicuous cue, but the effects on reproduction of the high inter- and intra-annual variation in temperature remain poorly understood, despite being relevant to the current context of global warming. Here, we conducted a multiyear examination of the relationships between a suite of measures of temperature and rainfall, and the onset and length of the breeding season, the probability of breeding and reproductive output in an arid-region passerine, the sociable weaver (). As expected, reproductive output increased with rainfall, yet specific relationships were conditional on the timing of rainfall: clutch production was correlated with rainfall throughout the season, whereas fledgling production was correlated with early summer rainfall. Moreover, we reveal novel correlations between aspects of breeding and temperature, indicative of earlier laying dates after warmer springs, and longer breeding seasons during cooler summers. These results have implications for understanding population trends under current climate change scenarios and call for more studies on the role of temperature in reproduction beyond those conducted on temperate-region species.
动物的繁殖周期通常由适宜繁殖条件的环境线索触发。在干旱环境中，降雨可能是最明显的线索，但尽管温度的年际和年内变化很大与当前全球变暖的背景相关，但其对繁殖的影响仍知之甚少。在这里，我们对干旱地区的一种雀形目鸟类——群居织巢鸟的一系列温度和降雨指标与繁殖季节的开始和长度、繁殖概率以及繁殖输出之间的关系进行了多年研究。正如预期的那样，繁殖输出随降雨增加，但具体关系取决于降雨时间：整个季节的窝卵数与降雨相关，而雏鸟数量与初夏降雨相关。此外，我们揭示了繁殖与温度之间的新关联，表明春季较暖后产卵日期提前，夏季较凉时繁殖季节更长。这些结果对于理解当前气候变化情景下的种群趋势具有启示意义，并呼吁开展更多关于温度在繁殖中的作用的研究，而不仅仅局限于对温带地区物种的研究。
