Abstract
It is widely accepted that recent increases in environmental temperature have had a causal effect on changing life histories; however, much of the evidence for this is derived from long-term observations, whereas inferences of causation require experimentation. Here, we assess effects of increased environmental temperature during incubation on posthatching development, nestling begging and parental care, and reproductive success in two wild, cavity-nesting songbirds, the Carolina wren and prothonotary warbler. We heated experimental nests only during incubation, which increased nest-cavity temperature by ca. 1 °C. This reduced the length of the incubation and nestling periods, and reduced fledging success in prothonotary warblers, while nestling Carolina wrens had similar fledging success but reduced body condition in response to increased temperature. Increased nest-cavity temperature during incubation also reduced posthatching begging by nestlings generally and parental care within Carolina wrens specifically, suggesting potential mechanisms generating these carry-over effects. Offspring body mass and fledging age are often predictive of post-fledging survival and recruitment. Thus, our results suggest that increasing temperatures may affect fitness in wild populations in species-specific ways, and induce life-history changes including the classic trade-off parents face between the size and number of offspring.
Highlights
Recent environmental change, including shifts in temperature, have affected the life histories of various organisms
Carry-over effects occur whenever conditions experienced during one life-history stage affect performance or behaviour in subsequent stages[28,29,30], and there is evidence that environmental temperature during development can induce these kinds of effects
A recent analysis of a 36-year data set from a study of a population of house wrens[5] revealed an advance in breeding phenology in the population associated with increasing temperatures since 1980, and that incubation periods had shortened over this time as well, as there was a negative correlation between ambient temperature and the duration of incubation
Summary
Recent environmental change, including shifts in temperature, have affected the life histories of various organisms. Www.nature.com/scientificreports their eggs, but incubating parents routinely take breaks, leaving eggs unattended and, susceptible to environmental temperatures Such variation in environmental temperature may affect components of postnatal development[18,27,28,32,33,34], and recent work has revealed potential mechanisms that might mediate effects of environmental temperature on postnatal behaviour[35,36]. Increased nest temperature might be beneficial under low average environmental temperature in early spring (e.g., possibly by reducing the cost of incubation to parents), the effects of nest microclimate on the duration of incubation may carry over to generate costs to offspring in subsequent life-history stages. Overall, the increased temperature would reduce the time required for eggs to hatch, and that this would affect the period of nestling development, possibly by delaying fledging age[5]
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