| 1. |
- Arct, Aneta, et al.
(författare)
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Benefits of extra-pair mating may depend on environmental conditions-an experimental study in the blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)
- 2013
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Ingår i: Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0340-5443 .- 1432-0762. ; 67:11, s. 1809-1815
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Extra-pair mating constitutes a relatively common reproductive strategy in many socially monogamous bird species. This strategy may considerably improve reproductive success of males, but female benefits from extra-pair matings still remain unclear and empirical evidence is scarce. This may be because genetic benefits of extra-pair mating are not always revealed. It is possible that they are shown only in unfavourable environmental conditions and hence problems arise with detecting differences between within- and extra-pair offspring whose performance is measured under favourable conditions. In order to test this prediction, we manipulated environmental conditions by altering brood sizes of blue tits and compared phenotypic characteristics of within- and extra-pair offspring in mixed-paternity broods. We found that extra-pair young exhibited a higher response to phytohemagglutinin in comparison to within-pair young, but this was only observed among nestlings from experimentally enlarged broods. These results indicate that genetic benefits may interact with the environment, and thus benefits of extra-pair mating are likely to become visible only when conditions are relatively unfavourable.
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| 2. |
- Arct, Aneta, et al.
(författare)
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Extra-pair paternity in Blue Tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) depends on the combination of social partners' age
- 2022
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Ingår i: Ibis. - : Wiley. - 0019-1019 .- 1474-919X. ; 164:2, s. 388-395
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is growing evidence that engaging in extra-pair copulations may be a strategy by which females can modify their initial mate choice if they are constrained by primary choice of the social mate. Several factors such as genetic similarity and adult phenotypic traits can affect extra-pair paternity (EPP) patterns, but the relative importance of these factors may vary among species. Moreover, interactive effects of male and female characteristics have rarely been considered. Here, we aimed to study how multiple parameters characterizing a breeding pair (i.e. genetic similarity between mates, partners’ age and laying date) predict the occurrence of EPP at the brood level. The study uses 4 years of data from a wild population of Blue Tits Cyanistes caeruleus. Contrary to predictions of the inbreeding avoidance hypothesis, we did not find a positive relationship between the occurrence of EPP and the relatedness of social mates. We also found that the probability of EPP was unrelated to laying date. However, EPP was predicted by an interaction of social partners' ages. Specifically, EPP was less likely when old females were paired with old males in comparison to old females paired to young males. Our study suggests that the occurrence of EPP may be the result of behavioural interactions in which both male and female age are important for determining the outcome. Our results confirm the importance of considering the interactions of male and female characteristics in studies investigating EPP patterns.
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| 3. |
- Arct, Aneta, et al.
(författare)
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Heterozygosity-fitness correlations in blue tit nestlings (Cyanistis caeruleus) under contrasting rearing conditions
- 2017
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Ingår i: Evolutionary Ecology. - : SPRINGER. - 0269-7653 .- 1573-8477. ; 31:5, s. 803-814
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Understanding the relation between genetic variation and fitness remains a key question in evolutionary biology. Although heterozygosity has been reported to correlate with many fitness-related traits, the strength of the heterozygosity-fitness correlations (HFCs) is usually weak and it is still difficult to assess the generality of these associations in natural populations. It has been suggested that HFCs may become meaningful only under particular environmental conditions. Moreover, existing evidence suggests that HFCs may also differ between sexes. The aim of this study was to investigate correlations between heterozygosity in neutral markers (microsatellites) and fitness-related traits in a natural population of blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus). Additionally, we tested whether sex and environmental conditions may influence the magnitude and direction of HFCs. We found a positive relationship between heterozygosity and body mass of 14 days post-hatching nestlings, but only among females. Our results suggest that the correlation between heterozygosity and nestling body mass observed among female offspring could be attributed to within-brood effects. We failed to find any evidence that environmental conditions as simulated by brood size manipulation affect HFCs.
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| 4. |
- Arct, Aneta, et al.
(författare)
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Parental genetic similarity and offspring performance in blue tits in relation to brood size manipulation
- 2019
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Ingår i: Ecology and Evolution. - : WILEY. - 2045-7758. ; 9:18, s. 10085-10091
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In birds, as in many other taxa, higher genetic similarity of mates has long been known to reduce offspring fitness. To date, the majority of avian studies have focused on examination whether the genetic similarity of social mates predicts hatching success. Yet, increased genetic similarity of mates may also reduce offspring fitness during later life stages, including the nestling period and beyond. Here, we investigated whether parental genetic similarity influences offspring performance using data from free-living blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) collected across three breeding seasons. Additionally, we tested whether brood size manipulation affects the magnitude and direction of the relationship between genetic similarity of mates and offspring performance. Sixteen microsatellite markers were used to measure genetic similarity between biological parents. We found that the genetic similarity of parents negatively affects offspring immune response and this effect was independent of the experimental brood size manipulation.
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| 5. |
- Arct, Aneta, et al.
(författare)
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Temperature variability is associated with the occurrence of extrapair paternity in blue tits
- 2024
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Ingår i: Behavioral Ecology. - : Oxford University Press. - 1045-2249 .- 1465-7279. ; 35:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In birds, extrapair paternity (EPP) constitutes an alternative mating strategy, with potentially important fitness consequences for both males and females and their offspring. Several factors have been identified that can influence the occurrence of EPP, but the role of environmental variability has so far received relatively little attention. Using long-term data set from a wild population of the blue tit (Cyanistes cearuleus), we assess the importance of ambient temperature in modulating the levels of extrapair paternity. Here, we showed that the variability of local thermal conditions affects the occurrence of EPP. Specifically, we found that the probability of EPP increased with rising variability in ambient temperature experienced by females prior to egg laying. This pattern is consistent with an idea of plastic female responses to unpredictable environments. Our results suggest that extrapair mating may represent an adaptive behavioral strategy to compensate for the potential negative effects of unstable environmental conditions.
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| 6. |
- Arct, Aneta, et al.
(författare)
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The interactive effect of ambient temperature and brood size manipulation on nestling body mass in blue tits : an exploratory analysis of a long-term study
- 2022
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Zoology. - : BioMed Central (BMC). - 1742-9994. ; 19:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background Relatively few studies have examined the interactive effects of ecological factors on physiological responses in wild animals. Nearly all of them have been short-term investigations that did not include experimental manipulations, limiting our ability to understand how climate change will affect natural populations. Using a 10-year brood size manipulation experiment in wild blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus), we quantified the impact of weather conditions and brood competition on the body mass and structural size (tarsus length) of nestlings just prior to leaving the nest. Results We found that variation in nestling body mass on day 14 after hatching was explained by an interactive effect between average ambient temperature experienced during nestling period and brood size treatment. Specifically, in control broods nestling body mass was correlated with temperature in a non-linear manner (concave) with the vertex point (maximum body mass) at ca. 13 degrees C. In contrast, in enlarged broods nestling body mass permanently increased (also non-linearly) as temperature advanced. Conclusions Our results highlight the importance of considering the effects of brood rearing conditions alongside other environmental factors experienced during growth while investigating early-life environmental effects on body condition.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Culina, Antica, et al.
(författare)
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Connecting the data landscape of long-term ecological studies : The SPI-Birds data hub
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of Animal Ecology. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0021-8790 .- 1365-2656. ; 90:9, s. 2147-2160
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The integration and synthesis of the data in different areas of science is drastically slowed and hindered by a lack of standards and networking programmes. Long-term studies of individually marked animals are not an exception. These studies are especially important as instrumental for understanding evolutionary and ecological processes in the wild. Furthermore, their number and global distribution provides a unique opportunity to assess the generality of patterns and to address broad-scale global issues (e.g. climate change). To solve data integration issues and enable a new scale of ecological and evolutionary research based on long-term studies of birds, we have created the SPI-Birds Network and Database ()-a large-scale initiative that connects data from, and researchers working on, studies of wild populations of individually recognizable (usually ringed) birds. Within year and a half since the establishment, SPI-Birds has recruited over 120 members, and currently hosts data on almost 1.5 million individual birds collected in 80 populations over 2,000 cumulative years, and counting. SPI-Birds acts as a data hub and a catalogue of studied populations. It prevents data loss, secures easy data finding, use and integration and thus facilitates collaboration and synthesis. We provide community-derived data and meta-data standards and improve data integrity guided by the principles of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR), and aligned with the existing metadata languages (e.g. ecological meta-data language). The encouraging community involvement stems from SPI-Bird's decentralized approach: research groups retain full control over data use and their way of data management, while SPI-Birds creates tailored pipelines to convert each unique data format into a standard format. We outline the lessons learned, so that other communities (e.g. those working on other taxa) can adapt our successful model. Creating community-specific hubs (such as ours, COMADRE for animal demography, etc.) will aid much-needed large-scale ecological data integration.
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| 9. |
- Drobniak, Szymon M., et al.
(författare)
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Differential effects of steroid hormones on levels of broad-sense heritability in a wild bird : possible mechanism of environment x genetic variance interaction?
- 2022
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Ingår i: Heredity. - : Springer Nature. - 0018-067X .- 1365-2540. ; 128:1, s. 63-76
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Genetic variation is one of the key concepts in evolutionary biology and an important prerequisite of evolutionary change. However, we know very little about processes that modulate its levels in wild populations. In particular, we still are to understand why genetic variances often depend on environmental conditions. One of possible environment-sensitive modulators of observed levels of genetic variance are maternal effects. In this study we attempt to experimentally test the hypothesis that maternally transmitted agents (e.g. hormones) may influence the expression of genetic variance in quantitative traits in the offspring. We manipulated the levels of steroid hormones (testosterone and corticosterone) in eggs laid by blue tits in a wild population. Our experimental setup allowed for full crossing of genetic and rearing effects with the experimental manipulation. We observed that birds treated with corticosterone exhibited a significant decrease in broad-sense genetic variance of tarsus length, and an increase in this component in body mass on the 2nd day post-hatching. Our study indicates, that maternally transmitted substances such as hormones may have measurable impact on the levels of genetic variance and hence, on the evolutionary potential of quantitative traits.
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| 10. |
- Drobniak, Szymon M., et al.
(författare)
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Habitat shapes diversity of gut microbiomes in a wild population of blue tits Cyanistes caeruleus
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Avian Biology. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0908-8857 .- 1600-048X. ; 2022:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Microbiome constitutes an important axis of individual variation that, together with genes and the environment, influences an individual's physiology and fitness. Microbiomes are dependent not only on an individual's body condition but also on external factors, such as diet or stress levels, and as such can be involved into feedbacks between the external ecological factors and internal physiology. In our study, we used a wild population of blue tits Cyanistes caeruleus to investigate the impact of external habitat composition on the microbiome of adult birds. We hypothesized that - through differences in plant composition, potentially affecting diet complexity - habitat type may impact the diversity and structure of the gut microbiome. Blue tits breeding in dense deciduous forests tended to have more diverse microbiomes and be significantly different in terms of microbiome composition from birds breeding in open, sparsely forested hay meadows. Distinct study plots also tended to differ in a number of parameters describing microbiome diversity. We observed no microbiome differentiation according to individual characteristics such as sex or age. The study emphasizes that external environment is one of the important modulators of microbiome diversity and calls for more such studies in wild animal populations.
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