Geographical variation in reproductive investment across avian assemblages in Europe: Effects of environmental drivers differ between altricial and precocial species
Abstract
Reproductive traits provide information about the ways by which available resources are allocated during breeding. We tested for environmental drivers of large scale geographical patterns in assemblage mean clutch size, number of broods and overall reproductive investment per breeding season in European birds.
We combined data about geographical distribution with published information about reproductive traits, and calculated mean trait values for avian assemblages occurring in 50 x 50 km grid cells. In total, we employed data from 499 species and 2059 assemblages.
As the time available for breeding and the amount of food limit the reproductive effort, we related the geographical variation in reproductive traits to the length of breeding season, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) as a surrogate of resource availability, and its seasonality. Geographical patterns in traits may differ between reproductive modes, thus we performed the analyses separately for altricial Passerines (N=203) and precocial non-passerine species (N=164) and controlled for the effect of taxonomy.
Large clutches dominated in areas with high NDVI and, in precocial birds, also in areas with high annual seasonality and a long breeding season. High number of broods and high overall reproductive investment dominated in areas with a long breeding season, and high number of broods was found also in areas with low annual seasonality, but only in precocial species.
High overall reproductive investment dominated in highly productive areas and also in areas with low annual seasonality in both groups. The increase in reproductive investment is caused mostly by an increase in the number of broods related to the length of season and partly by increase in clutch size related to NDVI.
Additionally, we found a negative correlation between clutch size and the number of broods in Passerines, which might suggest a trade-off between these traits. Processes behind spatial patterns in reproductive traits differ between altricial and precocial species.