Latitudinal variation in parental energy expenditure during brood rearing in the great tit

The variation in time and energy allocation of female great tits, Pants major, was studied in five different European populations across a latitudinal gradient. Daily energy expenditure (DEE) was measured in fe males tending 12-day-old broods. The number of daylight hours used by the parents to coll...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Oecologia
Main Authors: Sanz, Juan José, Tinbergen, Joost M., Moreno, J., Orell, Markku, Verhulst, Simon
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2000
Subjects:
daily energy expenditure
doubly labelled water
parental effort
Parus major
working day length
FLYCATCHER FICEDULA-HYPOLEUCA
KESTREL FALCO-TINNUNCULUS
DOUBLY LABELED WATER
PARUS-MAJOR
CLUTCH-SIZE
PIED FLYCATCHER
NORTHERN FINLAND
REPRODUCTION
TEMPERATURE
CAERULEUS
Dee
Parus
Northern Finland
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/11370/e54ad237-ba06-455f-b4bf-7d0a4bbacb83
https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/e54ad237-ba06-455f-b4bf-7d0a4bbacb83
https://doi.org/10.1007/PL00008842
Description
Summary:The variation in time and energy allocation of female great tits, Pants major, was studied in five different European populations across a latitudinal gradient. Daily energy expenditure (DEE) was measured in fe males tending 12-day-old broods. The number of daylight hours used by the parents to collect food for the brood increased with latitude, while DEE and feeding rate per brood tended to level off with latitude. Individual variation in DEE could be explained by variation in ambient temperature (-), the duration of activity period (+) and area, but not by brood size, female body mass, brood mass or feeding rate. When the effect of ambient temperature and the duration of the activity period on the day of energy expenditure measurements were controlled for, female DEE still tended to level off with latitude. Temperature and activity alone can thus not explain the observed pattern. The present study suggests that parents at southern latitudes may be under a time constraint and do not increase energy expenditure because they have no more daylight hours available for foraging, while birds at northern latitudes may be under an energy constraint because they do not make full use of the long daylight period available.

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