Quantitative assessment of the importance of phenotypic plasticity in adaptation to climate change in wild bird populations.

ABSTRACT: Predictions about the fate of species or populations under climate change scenarios typically neglect adaptive evolution and phenotypic plasticity, the two major mechanisms by which organisms can adapt to changing local conditions. As a consequence, we have little understanding of the scope for organisms to track changing environments by in situ adaptation. Here, we use a detailed individual-specific long-term population study of great tits (Parus major) breeding in Wytham Woods, Oxford, UK to parameterise a mechanistic model and thus directly estimate the rate of environmental change to which in situ adaptation is possible. Using the effect of changes in early spring temperature on temporal synchrony between birds and a critical food resource, we focus in particular on the contribution of

SUBMITTER: Vedder O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3706305 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature