Abstract
Although climate change apparently affects the breeding patterns of many animals1,2,3, the wider implications for breeding success are unclear. Here we describe an energy trade-off between reproduction and maintenance that occurs during cold weather in great tits (Parus major L.), pointing to a thermal constraint on the timing of egg laying. Our observations indicate that the fine-scale pattern of climate change could be critical to the reproduction of some species and underlies previously unexplained variation in the breeding success of other temperate birds.
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Stevenson, I., Bryant, D. Climate change and constraints on breeding . Nature 406, 366–367 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35019151
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35019151
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