10.5061/DRYAD.CV853
Gardner, Janet L.
Australian National University
Rowley, Eleanor
53 Swan Street, Guildford, Western Australia 6055, Australia
de Rebeira, Perry
12 Glenwood Avenue, Glen Forrest, Western Australia 6071, Australia
de Rebeira, Alma
12 Glenwood Avenue, Glen Forrest, Western Australia 6071, Australia
Brouwer, Lyanne
Australian National University
Data from: Effects of extreme weather on two sympatric Australian
passerine bird species
Dryad
dataset
2017
size-dependent mortality
Meliphagoidea
extreme climatic events
Sericornis frontalis
passerine birds
Malurus elegans
2017-05-15T16:24:55Z
2017-05-15T16:24:55Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2016.0148
220851 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Despite abundant evidence that natural populations are responding to
climate change, there are few demonstrations of how extreme climatic
events (ECEs) affect fitness. Climate warming increases adverse effects of
exposure to high temperatures, but also reduces exposure to cold ECEs.
Here, we investigate variation in survival associated with severity of
summer and winter conditions, and whether survival is better predicted by
ECEs than mean temperatures using data from two coexisting bird species
monitored over 37 years in southwestern Australia, red-winged fairy-wrens,
Malurus elegans and white-browed scrubwrens, Sericornis frontalis. Changes
in survival were associated with temperature extremes more strongly than
average temperatures. In scrubwrens, winter ECEs were associated with
survival within the same season. In both species, survival was associated
with body size, and there was evidence that size-dependent mortality was
mediated by carry-over effects of climate in the previous season. For
fairy-wrens, mean body size declined over time but this could not be
explained by size-dependent mortality as the effects of body size on
survival were consistently positive. Our study demonstrates how ECEs can
have individual-level effects on survival that are not reflected in
long-term morphological change, and the same climatic conditions can
affect similar-sized, coexisting species in different ways.
Gardner et al.data.PhilTransBRaw data
Western Australia
Manjimup