Geographic variation in incubation behavior of a widely distributed passerine bird.

ABSTRACT: Incubating birds must trade-off leaving the nest to forage with staying on the nest to maintain optimal temperatures for developing embryos. This trade-off is expressed through incubation behavior, which can be heavily influenced by climate, food availability, attentiveness of their mates, and nest predation risk. Comparative studies across species have shown that incubation behavior varies across latitude, but few studies have explored how incubation behavior varies across sites within species. We might expect incubation behavior to be flexible and respond to local environmental challenges; alternatively, behavior may be relatively fixed and vary little across a species' range. We explored four incubation behaviors (male feeding rate, female off-bout duration, female off-bout frequency, a

SUBMITTER: Rohwer VG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6693686 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature