Environmental Variability Shapes Life History of the World's Birds.

ABSTRACT: Theory suggests life history plays a key role in the ability of organisms to persist under fluctuating environmental conditions. However, the notion that environmental variability has shaped the distribution of life history traits across large spatial and taxonomic scales has gone largely untested using empirical data. Synthesising a collection of data resources on global climate, species traits, and species ranges, we quantified the role that environmental variability over time has played in shaping pace of life across the world's non-migratory, non-marine bird species (N = 7477). In support of existing theory, we found that species that experience high inter-annual temperature variability tended to have a slower pace of life, while the opposite was true for high intra-annual temperature

SUBMITTER: Youngflesh C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11850966 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature