Phenotypic plasticity in mass loss during chick rearing in the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

Abstract

Abstract It has long been recognized that mass loss during breeding could be adaptive (e.g., by ameliorating the costs of increased parental activity). However, many studies still commonly interpret mass loss as evidence of “stress” or a cost of reproduction (i.e., a negative effect of high workload during chick provisioning). Despite several studies reporting evidence in support of both hypotheses, the ecological and/or life‐history contexts under which mass loss may be viewed as a “cost” or an adaptive strategy are still unclear. Here, we used a long‐term dataset from a breeding population of European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) to investigate natural annual and individual variation in body mass and mass loss and to test whether mass loss during chick rearing represents a phenotypically plastic trait that varies predictably in relation to ecological context and individual quality. While there was significant annual variation in incubation mass, chick‐rearing mass, and mass change, there were no systematic relationships between mass loss and current breeding success or future fecundity and survival. In addition, we found no evidence of intra‐annual repeatability of mass loss between first and second broods ( = .00) but moderate interannual repeatability of mass loss (R = .61) during first broods, suggesting differences in mass loss under different selective pressures. However, we found no covariation between residual intra‐individual variation in mass loss for first broods and other reproductive or life‐history traits. We therefore found no support for the idea that mass loss reflects “reproductive stress” in our system: there were no negative relationships between mass loss and either current or future reproduction and survival (local return rate). Our results are consistent with mass loss being an individually plastic trait, with individuals using mass loss to “level the playing field” and individually optimize reproductive effort and fitness within their specific ecological context and relative to their individual quality for a given breeding attempt.

Keywords

• birds
• European starling
• mass loss
• parental care
• phenotypic plasticity
• reproduction