Meeting Abstract

62-5  Friday, Jan. 6 14:30 – 14:45  Parental investment, phenotypic correlations, and landscape: understanding the role of habitat in shaping wild bird phenotypes MERRILL, L*; CHIAVACCI, S; SANTYMIRE, R; HAUSSMANN, M; PAITZ, R; BARGER, A; BENSON, TJ; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Lincoln Park Zoo; Bucknell University; Illinois State University; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign loren21@illinois.edu

Early life conditions are important for shaping the adult phenotype of many organisms. For wild birds, features of the landscape can impact nestling development indirectly via parental effects, and directly via food quality, predation and disease risk. In this study we investigated the relationships between landscape features and parental investment and nestling condition for five shrubland birds breeding across a gradient of developed land and shrubland. Our focal bird species were American robin, northern cardinal, field sparrow, brown thrasher, and grey catbird. We found that parental investment and the associations among morphometric traits varied with changes in land cover, providing evidence for the importance of continuous variation in nest-site habitat features on the development of wild birds.