Multi-scale effects of nestling diet on breeding performance in a terrestrial top predator inferred from stable isotope analysis.

ABSTRACT: Inter-individual diet variation within populations is likely to have important ecological and evolutionary implications. The diet-fitness relationships at the individual level and the emerging population processes are, however, poorly understood for most avian predators inhabiting complex terrestrial ecosystems. In this study, we use an isotopic approach to assess the trophic ecology of nestlings in a long-lived raptor, the Bonelli's eagle Aquila fasciata, and investigate whether nestling dietary breath and main prey consumption can affect the species' reproductive performance at two spatial scales: territories within populations and populations over a large geographic area. At the territory level, those breeding pairs whose nestlings consumed similar diets to the overall population (i.e.

SUBMITTER: Resano-Mayor J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3990674 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature