Data from: Conflict between biotic and climatic selective pressures acting on an extended phenotype in a subarctic, but not temperate, environment ...

• Main Authors: Rohwer, Vanya G., Bonier, Frances, Martin, Paul R.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2015
• Subjects: bird nest; trade-offs; geographic variation; Subarctic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.c65d8; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.c65d8

Climatic selective pressures are thought to dominate biotic selective pressures at higher latitudes. However, few studies have experimentally tested how these selective pressures differentially act on traits across latitudes because traits can rarely be manipulated independently of the organism in nature. We overcame this challenge by using an extended phenotype—active bird nests—and conducted reciprocal transplant experiments between a subarctic and temperate site, separated by 14° of latitude. At the subarctic site, biotic selective pressures (nest predation) favoured smaller, non-local temperate nests, whereas climatic selective pressures (temperature) favoured larger local nests, particularly at colder temperatures. By contrast, at the temperate site, climatic and biotic selective pressures acted similarly on temperate and subarctic nests. Our results illustrate a functional trade-off in the subarctic between nest morphologies favoured by biotic versus climatic selective pressures, with climate favouring ... : Rohwer etal_nest transplant dataData for nest fate, number of young fledged, nest temperature and humidity, parental behaviour, incubation duration, ectoparasites, adult female and nestling corticosterone, and nestling growth rates for nests used in transplant experiments between a subarctic and temperate site.Rohwer etal_ywar_datadryad.xlsx ...