Plasticity of noddy parents and offspring to sea-surface temperature anomalies

Devney, Carol A., Caley, M. Julian, and Congdon, Bradley C. (2010) Plasticity of noddy parents and offspring to sea-surface temperature anomalies. PLoS ONE, 5 (7). e11891. pp. 1-10.

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DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0011891

View at Publisher Website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0...

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Abstract

Behavioral and/or developmental plasticity is crucial for resisting the impacts of environmental stressors. We investigated the plasticity of adult foraging behavior and chick development in an offshore foraging seabird, the black noddy (Anous minutus), during two breeding seasons. The first season had anomalously high sea-surface temperatures and ‘low’ prey availability, while the second was a season of below average sea-surface temperatures and ‘normal’ food availability. During the second season, supplementary feeding of chicks was used to manipulate offspring nutritional status in order to mimic conditions of high prey availability. When sea-surface temperatures were hotter than average, provisioning rates were significantly and negatively impacted at the day-to-day scale. Adults fed chicks during this low-food season smaller meals but at the same rate as chicks in the unfed treatment the following season. Supplementary feeding of chicks during the second season also resulted in delivery of smaller meals by adults, but did not influence feeding rate. Chick begging and parental responses to cessation of food supplementation suggested smaller meals fed to artificially supplemented chicks resulted from a decrease in chick demands associated with satiation, rather than adult behavioral responses to chick condition. During periods of low prey abundance, chicks maintained structural growth while sacrificing body condition and were unable to take advantage of periods of high prey abundance by increasing growth rates. These results suggest that this species expresses limited plasticity in provisioning behavior and offspring development. Consequently, responses to future changes in sea-surface temperature and other environmental variation may be limited.


Item ID:	16348
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1932-6203
Additional Information:	Copyright: © 2010 Devney et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Date Deposited:	10 May 2011 11:57
FoR Codes:	06 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 0602 Ecology > 060201 Behavioural Ecology @ 50% 05 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 0502 Environmental Science and Management > 050202 Conservation and Biodiversity @ 25% 05 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 0501 Ecological Applications > 050101 Ecological Impacts of Climate Change @ 25%
SEO Codes:	96 ENVIRONMENT > 9603 Climate and Climate Change > 960307 Effects of Climate Change and Variability on Australia (excl. Social Impacts) @ 50% 96 ENVIRONMENT > 9608 Flora, Fauna and Biodiversity > 960808 Marine Flora, Fauna and Biodiversity @ 50%
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