A new trophic specialization buffers a top predator against climate-driven resource instability.

ABSTRACT: Intraspecific phenotypic variability is key to respond to environmental changes and anomalies. However, documenting the emergence of behavioral diversification in natural populations has remained elusive due to the difficulty of observing such a phenomenon at the right time and place. Here, we investigated how the emergence of a new trophic strategy in a population subjected to high fluctuations in the availability of its main trophic resource (migrating songbirds) affected the breeding performance, population structure, and population fitness of a specialized color polymorphic predator, the Eleonora's falcon from the Canary Islands. Using long-term data (2007-2022), we found that the exploitation of an alternative prey (a local petrel species) was associated with the growth of a previousl

SUBMITTER: Gangoso L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10824164 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar-Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature