Animal Ecology, Department of Ecology and Genetics, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18D, 752 36, Uppsala, Sweden.
Institute of Nature Conservation, Polish Academy of Sciences, Mickiewicza 33, 31-120, Kraków, Poland.
Sci Rep. 2023 Sep 11;13(1):14967. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-42166-2.
Breeding responses of organisms to environmental changes may profoundly depend on an individual's age, as an age-environment interaction may be expected to affect the expression of reproductive traits. However, little is known about how this interaction affects short-lived species that experience various environmental conditions in adulthood. Here, we used a 32-year dataset from the collared flycatcher, Ficedula albicollis, population to test whether and how the environment interacts with age to shape female age-specific reproduction. To characterise environmental variation, we applied the remotely sensed normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI), estimating vegetation productivity, and used it as a surrogate for habitat quality. Then, we analysed how within-individual age and NDVI determine patterns in laying date, clutch size, offspring production, and recruitment. We found that young and old females, but not middle-aged females, breeding under low NDVI started to lay eggs later and produced smaller clutches than females of the same age breeding under higher NDVI. No such effects were observed for offspring production or recruitment. Our study provides evidence that both an individual's age and the environmental variation experienced during adulthood may be crucial for shaping reproductive patterns in short-lived avian species, as has been found in long-lived birds.
生物对环境变化的繁殖反应可能在很大程度上取决于个体的年龄，因为年龄与环境的相互作用可能会影响生殖特征的表达。然而，对于在成年期经历各种环境条件的短寿命物种，这种相互作用如何影响它们的情况知之甚少。在这里，我们使用了来自领雀嘴鹎（Ficedula albicollis）种群的 32 年数据集，来检验环境是否以及如何与年龄相互作用来塑造雌性特定年龄的繁殖。为了描述环境变化，我们应用了遥感归一化差异植被指数（NDVI），该指数估计了植被生产力，并将其作为栖息地质量的替代指标。然后，我们分析了个体内部年龄和 NDVI 如何决定产卵日期、卵窝大小、后代产量和补充数量的模式。我们发现，在低 NDVI 下繁殖的年轻和年老雌性，而不是中年雌性，比在高 NDVI 下繁殖的同龄雌性产卵时间更晚，产下的卵窝更小。后代产量或补充数量没有观察到这种影响。我们的研究提供了证据，表明个体的年龄和成年期经历的环境变化可能对塑造短寿命鸟类的繁殖模式至关重要，就像在长寿鸟类中发现的那样。
