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Climate change is shifting the phenological timing, duration, and temporal overlap of interacting species in natural communities, reshaping temporal interaction networks worldwide. Despite much recent progress in documenting these phenological shifts, little is known about how the phenologies of species interactions are tracked across different life history stages. Here we analyze four key phenological traits and the pairwise interaction potential of nine amphibian species for the adult (calling/breeding) and subsequent larval (tadpole) stage at eight different sites over six years. We found few strong correlations among phenological traits within species, but the strength of these correlations varied across species. As a consequence, phenological trait combinations of both stages varied substantially across species without clear signs of multidimensional clustering, indicating a distinct and diverse range of species‐specific phenological strategies. Despite this considerable variation in the phenologies across species, the temporal overlap between species was largely preserved through the two life history stages. Further, we also detected significant correlations among the duration and temporal overlap of interactions with other species across stages in five species, demonstrating that temporal patterns of species interactions are mirrored across life history stages. For these species, these results indicate a strong tracking of phenologies and species interactions across life history stages even in species with complex life cycles where stages occupy completely different environments. This suggests that phenological shifts in one stage can impact the temporal dynamics and structure of interaction networks across developmental stages.
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Sex‐specific breeding phenologies in the North American deer mouse ( Peromyscus maniculatus )
Abstract Effects of global climate change on population persistence are often mediated by life‐history traits of individuals, especially the timing of somatic growth, reproductive development, and reproduction itself. These traits can vary among age groups and between the sexes, a result of differential life‐history tactics and levels of lifetime reproductive investment. Unfortunately, the trait data necessary for revealing sex‐specific breeding behaviors and use of breeding cues over reasonably large geographic areas remain sparse for most taxa. In this study, we assembled and analyzed a new reproductive trait base for the North American deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) from digitized natural history specimens and field censuses. We used the data to reconstruct sex‐specific breeding phenologies and their drivers within and among North American ecoregions. Male and female phenologies varied across the geographic range of this species, with discordance in timing and intensity being highest in regions of lower seasonality (and longer breeding seasons). Reliance on environmental variables as breeding cues also appeared to vary in a sex‐specific manner, being most similar for photoperiod and least similar for temperature (positive male response and negative female response); in addition, model validation indicated that phenological models generalized better for males than for females. Finally, our individual‐level trait data also show that male reproductive investment (quantified as relative testis size) varies across the vastly different abiotic and social (i.e., female breeding) contexts studied here. By harmonizing across a broad set of digital data resources, we demonstrate the potential to uncover drivers of phenological variation within species and inform global change predictions at multiple scales of biological organization.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1759898
- PAR ID:
- 10392856
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Ecosphere
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 12
- ISSN:
- 2150-8925
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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