Effects of winter food provisioning on the phenotypes of breeding blue tits.

ABSTRACT: Throughout the Western World, huge numbers of people regularly supply food for wild birds. However, evidence of negative impacts of winter feeding on future reproduction has highlighted a need to improve understanding of the underlying mechanisms shaping avian responses to supplementary food. Here, we test the possibility that carry-over effects are mediated via their impact on the phenotypes of breeding birds, either by influencing the phenotypic structure of populations through changes in winter survival and/or by more direct effects on the condition of breeding birds. Using a landscape-scale 3-year study of blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus), we demonstrate the importance of nutritional composition of supplementary food in determining carry-over effect outcomes. We show that breedin

SUBMITTER: Plummer KE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5980576 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature