0000000000307538
AUTHOR
S. Ruuskanen
Population divergence in maternal investment and embryo energy use and allocation suggests adaptive responses to cool climates
1. The thermal sensitivity of early life stages can play a fundamental role in constraining species distributions. For egg-laying ectotherms, cool temperatures often extend development time and exacerbate developmental energy cost. Despite these costs, egg laying is still observed at high latitudes and altitudes. How embryos overcome the developmental constraints posed by cool climates is crucial knowledge for explaining the persistence of oviparous species in such environments and for understanding thermal adaptation more broadly. 2. Here, we studied maternal investment and embryo energy use and allocation in wall lizards spanning altitudinal regions, as potential mechanisms that enable su…
No evidence for associations between brood size, gut microbiome diversity and survival in great tit (Parus major) nestlings
Abstract Background The gut microbiome forms at an early stage, yet data on the environmental factors influencing the development of wild avian microbiomes is limited. As the gut microbiome is a vital part of organismal health, it is important to understand how it may connect to host performance. The early studies with wild gut microbiome have shown that the rearing environment may be of importance in gut microbiome formation, yet the results vary across taxa, and the effects of specific environmental factors have not been characterized. Here, wild great tit (Parus major) broods were manipulated to either reduce or enlarge the original brood soon after hatching. We investigated if brood siz…