Age of first breeding interacts with pre- and post-recruitment experience in shaping breeding phenology in a long-lived gull.

ABSTRACT: Individual variation in timing of breeding is a key factor affecting adaptation to environmental change, yet our basic understanding of the causes of such individual variation is incomplete. This study tests several hypotheses for age-related variation in the breeding timing of Lesser Black-backed Gulls, based on a 13 year longitudinal data set that allows to decouple effects of age, previous prospecting behavior, and years of breeding experience on arrival timing at the colony. At the population level, age of first breeding was significantly associated with timing of arrival and survival, i.e. individuals tended to arrive later if they postponed their recruitment, and individuals recruiting at the age of 4 years survived best. However, up to 81% of the temporal variation in arrival dates

SUBMITTER: Bosman DS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3852959 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature