Does avian winter fat storage integrate temperature and resource conditions? A long‐term study

Abstract

Theoretical models of short‐term avian behaviour suggest that small birds adaptively balance the ecological costs and benefits of winter fat to maximize survival probability. When low starvation risk eliminates benefit but not cost of fat, birds are leaner than when under high starvation risk. Most models focus on single factors affecting starvation risk and subsequent choice of adaptive body mass; however, in complex environments, more than one factor affects starvation risk. To test for multiple interacting factors affecting fat reserves, long‐term geographical data on winter fat in a ground‐feeding finch, the dark‐eyed junco Junco hyemalis were analyzed. Two measures of fat were used: (1) visible subcutaneous fat class, and (2) body mass residuals left after age, sex and wing length effects were factored out. Site means for fat measures were obtained from juncos visiting supplemental feeding sites in midwest and northwest North America. In backward elimination regression of fat class, the temperature‐snowfall interaction term and its constituent variables, proximate temperature (averaged over capture day and the preceding ten days) and snowfall (frequency over the same time interval) were significant explanators of variation. Snowfall frequency is considered to be a surrogate measure of resource deterioration. The interaction term, also found in backward regression of body mass residuals, showed that as temperature declined at low snowfall frequency, less fat was deposited than when temperature declined at high snowfall frequency. Thus, in a recently cold environment suggesting relatively high resource predictability, perceived starvation risk is low, and less costly fat is needed to reduce starvation risk compared to a cold and unpredictable resource environment. The analysis of mass residuals also yielded a significant effect of daylength, suggesting an underlying fattening programme independent of proximate environmental conditions. A longitudinal study of junco fat stores indicated that individual environmental responses contributed significantly to midwinter fat peaks. These results agree with predictions of a synergistic model of adaptive fat regulation in small birds by suggesting that a ground‐feeding bird may maximize winter survival probability by integrating multiple environmental factors affecting starvation risk.