Data from: Early-life diet specificity is associated with long-lasting differences in apparent survival in a generalist predator.xlsx ...

• Main Authors: Nebel, Carina, Ekblad, Camilla, Balotari-Chiebao, Fabio, Penttinen, Ida, Stjernberg, Torsten, Laaksonen, Toni
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: figshare 2023
• Subjects: Behavioural ecology; Population ecology; Haliaeetus albicilla; White-tailed eagle
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21918840; https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Data_from_Early-life_diet_specificity_is_associated_with_long-lasting_differences_in_apparent_survival_in_a_generalist_predator_xlsx/21918840

Early-life conditions can have long-term fitness consequences. However, it is still unclear what optimal rearing conditions are, especially for long-lived carnivores. A more diverse diet (‘balanced diet’) might optimize nutrient availability and allow young to make experiences with a larger diversity of prey, whereas a narrow diet breadth (‘specialized diet’) might result in overall higher energy net gain. A diet that is dominated by a specific prey type (i.e. fish, ‘prey type hypothesis’) might be beneficial or detrimental, depending e.g. on its toxicity or contaminant load. Generalist predators such as the white-tailed eagle Haliaeetus albicilla provide an interesting possibility to examine the relationship between early life diet and long-term offspring survival. In the Åland Islands, an archipelago in the Baltic Sea, white-tailed eagles live in various coastal habitats and feed on highly variable proportions of birds and fish. We use data from 21,116 prey individuals that were collected from 120 ...