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Breeding synchrony and predator specialization: A test of the predator swamping hypothesis in seabirds

Reproductive synchrony is a widespread phenomenon that is predicted to be adaptive for prey with specialist predators but not for those with generalist ones. I tested this prediction in three polar seabird species characterized by different levels of predator specialization. In the Antarctic petrel,...

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Autor principal: Descamps, Sébastien
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6374647/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30805171
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.4863
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author Descamps, Sébastien
author_facet Descamps, Sébastien
author_sort Descamps, Sébastien
collection PubMed
description Reproductive synchrony is a widespread phenomenon that is predicted to be adaptive for prey with specialist predators but not for those with generalist ones. I tested this prediction in three polar seabird species characterized by different levels of predator specialization. In the Antarctic petrel, for which the only predator was highly specialized, hatching dates were highly synchronous and chicks that hatched close to the mean hatching date had a higher survival. In black‐legged kittiwakes and Brünnich's guillemots, whose predators were generalists, breeding was less synchronous and there was no fitness advantage in hatching close to the mean. This study emphasizes the potential importance of the relative timing of reproduction for individual fitness and supports the hypothesis that the adaptive value of breeding synchrony depends on the predator functional response.
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spelling pubmed-63746472019-02-25 Breeding synchrony and predator specialization: A test of the predator swamping hypothesis in seabirds Descamps, Sébastien Ecol Evol Original Research Reproductive synchrony is a widespread phenomenon that is predicted to be adaptive for prey with specialist predators but not for those with generalist ones. I tested this prediction in three polar seabird species characterized by different levels of predator specialization. In the Antarctic petrel, for which the only predator was highly specialized, hatching dates were highly synchronous and chicks that hatched close to the mean hatching date had a higher survival. In black‐legged kittiwakes and Brünnich's guillemots, whose predators were generalists, breeding was less synchronous and there was no fitness advantage in hatching close to the mean. This study emphasizes the potential importance of the relative timing of reproduction for individual fitness and supports the hypothesis that the adaptive value of breeding synchrony depends on the predator functional response. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019-01-15 /pmc/articles/PMC6374647/ /pubmed/30805171 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.4863 Text en © 2019 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Research
Descamps, Sébastien
Breeding synchrony and predator specialization: A test of the predator swamping hypothesis in seabirds
title Breeding synchrony and predator specialization: A test of the predator swamping hypothesis in seabirds
title_full Breeding synchrony and predator specialization: A test of the predator swamping hypothesis in seabirds
title_fullStr Breeding synchrony and predator specialization: A test of the predator swamping hypothesis in seabirds
title_full_unstemmed Breeding synchrony and predator specialization: A test of the predator swamping hypothesis in seabirds
title_short Breeding synchrony and predator specialization: A test of the predator swamping hypothesis in seabirds
title_sort breeding synchrony and predator specialization: a test of the predator swamping hypothesis in seabirds
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6374647/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30805171
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.4863
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