Rainfall during parental care reduces reproductive and survival components of fitness in a passerine bird.

ABSTRACT: Adverse weather conditions during parental care may have direct consequences for offspring production, but longer-term effects on juvenile and parental survival are less well known. We used long-term data on reproductive output, recruitment, and parental survival in northern wheatears (Oenanthe oenanthe) to investigate the effects of rainfall during parental care on fledging success, recruitment success (juvenile survival), and parental survival, and how these effects related to nestling age, breeding time, habitat quality, and parental nest visitation rates. While accounting for effects of temperature, fledging success was negatively related to rainfall (days > 10 mm) in the second half of the nestling period, with the magnitude of this effect being greater for breeding attempts early in

SUBMITTER: Oberg M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4314267 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature