dc.contributor.author | Resano-Mayor, J | |
dc.contributor.author | Hernández-Matías, A | |
dc.contributor.author | Real, J | |
dc.contributor.author | Moleón, M | |
dc.contributor.author | Parés, F | |
dc.contributor.author | Inger, R | |
dc.contributor.author | Bearhop, S | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2016-10-03T10:43:38Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2014-04-17 | |
dc.description.abstract | Inter-individual diet variation within populations is likely to have important ecological and evolutionary implications. The diet-fitness relationships at the individual level and the emerging population processes are, however, poorly understood for most avian predators inhabiting complex terrestrial ecosystems. In this study, we use an isotopic approach to assess the trophic ecology of nestlings in a long-lived raptor, the Bonelli's eagle Aquila fasciata, and investigate whether nestling dietary breath and main prey consumption can affect the species' reproductive performance at two spatial scales: territories within populations and populations over a large geographic area. At the territory level, those breeding pairs whose nestlings consumed similar diets to the overall population (i.e. moderate consumption of preferred prey, but complemented by alternative prey categories) or those disproportionally consuming preferred prey were more likely to fledge two chicks. An increase in the diet diversity, however, related negatively with productivity. The age and replacements of breeding pair members had also an influence on productivity, with more fledglings associated to adult pairs with few replacements, as expected in long-lived species. At the population level, mean productivity was higher in those population-years with lower dietary breadth and higher diet similarity among territories, which was related to an overall higher consumption of preferred prey. Thus, we revealed a correspondence in diet-fitness relationships at two spatial scales: territories and populations. We suggest that stable isotope analyses may be a powerful tool to monitor the diet of terrestrial avian predators on large spatio-temporal scales, which could serve to detect potential changes in the availability of those prey on which predators depend for breeding. We encourage ecologists and evolutionary and conservation biologists concerned with the multi-scale fitness consequences of inter-individual variation in resource use to employ similar stable isotope-based approaches, which can be successfully applied to complex ecosystems such as the Mediterranean. | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | Funding for this work was provided by projects CGL2007-64805 and CGL2010-17056 from the ‘‘Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacio´n, Gobierno de
Espan˜ a’’, the ‘‘A`rea d’Espais Naturals de la Diputacio´ de Barcelona’’, and Miquel Torres S.A. Fieldwork in France was carried out within the framework of the second
National Action Plan for Bonelli’s eagle from the ‘‘Ministe`re franc¸ais de l’E´cologie, de L’E´nergie, du De´veloppement Durable et de la Mer’’ and coordinated by the
DREAL LR ‘‘Direction Re´gionale de l’Environnement, de l’Ame´nagement et du Logement-Languedoc-Roussillon’’. J. Resano-Mayor was supported by a predoctoral
grant from the ‘‘Departamento de Educacio´n, Gobierno de Navarra; Plan de Formacio´n y de I+D 2008–2009’’, and M. Moleo´n by a postdoctoral grant from the
‘‘Ministerio de Educacio´n, Gobierno de Espan˜ a; Plan Nacional de I+D+i 2008–2011’’. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision
to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. | en_GB |
dc.identifier.citation | Vol. 9, article e95320 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1371/journal.pone.0095320 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/23732 | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | Public Library of Science | en_GB |
dc.relation.url | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24743233 | en_GB |
dc.rights | © 2014 Resano-Mayor 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 | en_GB |
dc.title | Multi-scale effects of nestling diet on breeding performance in a terrestrial top predator inferred from stable isotope analysis | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2016-10-03T10:43:38Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 1932-6203 | |
exeter.place-of-publication | United States | en_GB |
dc.description | This is the final version. Available on open access from Public Library of Science via the DOI in this record. | en_GB |
dc.identifier.journal | PLoS One | en_GB |