Individual diet specialisation in sparrows is driven by phenotypic plasticity in traits related to trade‐offs in animal performance

Individual diet specialisation (IS) is frequent in many animal taxa and affects population and community dynamics. The niche variation hypothesis (NVH) predicts that broader population niches should exhibit greater IS than populations with narrower niches, and most studies that examine the ecologica...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology letters 2019-01, Vol.22 (1), p.128-137
Main Authors: Maldonado, Karin, Newsome, Seth D., Razeto‐Barry, Pablo, Ríos, Juan Manuel, Piriz, Gabriela, Sabat, Pablo, Coulson, Tim
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation, Physiological
Animals
Assimilation efficiency
Diet
diet variation
digestive efficiency
digestive enzymes
Ecological monitoring
Ecosystem
Functional plasticity
individual diet specialisation
niche breadth
niche variation hypothesis
niche width
Niches
Nitrogen Isotopes
Phenotype
Phenotypic plasticity
Plastic properties
Plasticity
Populations
Sparrows
stable isotopes
trade‐offs
trophic niche
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Summary:Individual diet specialisation (IS) is frequent in many animal taxa and affects population and community dynamics. The niche variation hypothesis (NVH) predicts that broader population niches should exhibit greater IS than populations with narrower niches, and most studies that examine the ecological factors driving IS focus on intraspecific competition. We show that phenotypic plasticity of traits associated with functional trade‐offs is an important, but unrecognised mechanism that promotes and maintains IS. We measured nitrogen isotope (δ15N) and digestive enzyme plasticity in four populations of sparrows (Zonotrichia capensis) to explore the relationship between IS and digestive plasticity. Our results show that phenotypic plasticity associated with functional trade‐offs is related in a nonlinear fashion with the degree of IS and positively with population niche width. These findings are opposite to the NVH and suggest that among individual differences in diet can be maintained via acclimatisation and not necessarily require a genetic component.
ISSN:1461-023X
1461-0248
DOI:10.1111/ele.13174