Lifetime individual plasticity in body condition of a migratory bird

Abstract

Body condition is an important trait that reflects the capacity of individuals to acquire food or resist disease, eventually allowing successful reproduction and survival. We first quantified the effects of condition on life history and a secondary sexual trait using long-term lifetime data on condition in a migratory bird species, the barn swallow, Hirundo rustica. Second, we quantified sources of individual variation in condition by separating the within-individual from the between-individual components of variation of environmental condition and age on body condition. Therefore, we were able to partition variation as a result of selection and phenotypic plasticity. Within-individual variation in body condition increased in early life until middle age (i.e. 3–4 years of age) in the two sexes followed by only a slight decrease in body condition during senescence in males but not in females. After accounting for age-dependent variation, condition could be partitioned into a within-individual plastic response to environmental conditions during migration and a nonplastic response (i.e. a between-individual difference) to environmental conditions experienced in the African winter quarters. Specifically, there was a within-individual increase in body condition as environmental conditions during migration improved in both males and females, independent of age. There was a between-individual effect of condition found in the winter quarter in body condition of females, but not in males, which was attributed to the disappearance of females in poor body condition from the study population as a result of the higher natal dispersal of low-quality females compared to high-quality ones during years with favourable environmental conditions in the African winter quarters. Males and females also tended to be in better body condition during the warmer springs upon arrival at the breeding grounds. There was a temporal decline in female body condition during 1991–2007, whereas no significant trend was detected in males. Therefore, both intrinsic (e.g. age and sex) and extrinsic factors (e.g. climate) affected body condition.