Abstract
The production of offspring by vertebrates is often timed to coincide with the annual peak in resource availability. However, capital breeders can extend the energetic benefits of a resource pulse by storing food or fat, thus relaxing the need for synchrony between energy supply and demand. Food-hoarding red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) breeding in the boreal forest are reliant on cones from a masting conifer for their nutrition, yet lactation is typically completed before the annual crop of cones is available for consumption such that peaks in energy supply and demand are not synchronized. We investigated the phenological response of red squirrels to annual variation in environmental conditions over a 20-year span and examined how intra- and inter-annual variation in the timing of reproduction affected offspring recruitment. Reproductive phenology was strongly affected by past resource availability with offspring born earlier in years following large cone crops, presumably because this affected the amount of capital available for reproduction. Early breeders had higher offspring survival and were more likely to renest following early litter loss when population density was high, perhaps because late-born offspring are less competitive in obtaining a territory when vacancies are limited. Early breeders were also more likely to renest after successfully weaning their first litter, but renesting predominantly occurred during mast years. Because of their increased propensity to renest and the higher survival rates of their offspring, early breeders contribute more recruits to the population but the advantage of early breeding depends on population density and resource availability.
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Acknowledgments
The work was funded by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council to S. B., A. G. M., and M. M. H. and a grant from the National Science Foundation to A. G. M. We are grateful to the many students and crew members for data collection and to Ainsley Sykes for data and field management. This is contribution no. 72 of the Kluane Red Squirrel Project.
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Communicated by Jörg U. Ganzhorn.
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Williams, C.T., Lane, J.E., Humphries, M.M. et al. Reproductive phenology of a food-hoarding mast-seed consumer: resource- and density-dependent benefits of early breeding in red squirrels. Oecologia 174, 777–788 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-013-2826-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-013-2826-1