Skip to main content
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian
  • Log in
  • My Cart

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian

User menu

  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Home
Home

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses

New Research In

Physical Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Physics
  • Chemistry
  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Applied Mathematics
  • Applied Physical Sciences
  • Astronomy
  • Computer Sciences
  • Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
  • Engineering
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Mathematics
  • Statistics

Social Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Economic Sciences
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Political Sciences
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
  • Social Sciences

Biological Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Agricultural Sciences
  • Anthropology
  • Applied Biological Sciences
  • Biochemistry
  • Biophysics and Computational Biology
  • Cell Biology
  • Developmental Biology
  • Ecology
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Evolution
  • Genetics
  • Immunology and Inflammation
  • Medical Sciences
  • Microbiology
  • Neuroscience
  • Pharmacology
  • Physiology
  • Plant Biology
  • Population Biology
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
  • Sustainability Science
  • Systems Biology
Research Article

Energetics, lifestyle, and reproduction in birds

Richard M. Sibly, Christopher C. Witt, Natalie A. Wright, Chris Venditti, Walter Jetz, and James H. Brown
PNAS first published May 21, 2012; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1206512109
Richard M. Sibly
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: r.m.sibly@reading.ac.uk jhbrown@unm.edu
Christopher C. Witt
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Natalie A. Wright
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Chris Venditti
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Walter Jetz
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
James H. Brown
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: r.m.sibly@reading.ac.uk jhbrown@unm.edu
  1. Contributed by James H. Brown, April 24, 2012 (sent for review December 8, 2011)

Related Articles

  • Bird lifestyles
    - Jun 14, 2012
  • Article
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

Theoretical and empirical studies of life history aim to account for resource allocation to the different components of fitness: survival, growth, and reproduction. The pioneering evolutionary ecologist David Lack [(1968) Ecological Adaptations for Breeding in Birds (Methuen and Co., London)] suggested that reproductive output in birds reflects adaptation to environmental factors such as availability of food and risk of predation, but subsequent studies have not always supported Lack’s interpretation. Here using a dataset for 980 bird species (Dataset S1), a phylogeny, and an explicit measure of reproductive productivity, we test predictions for how mass-specific productivity varies with body size, phylogeny, and lifestyle traits. We find that productivity varies negatively with body size and energetic demands of parental care and positively with extrinsic mortality. Specifically: (i) altricial species are 50% less productive than precocial species; (ii) species with female-only care of offspring are about 20% less productive than species with other methods of parental care; (iii) nonmigrants are 14% less productive than migrants; (iv) frugivores and nectarivores are about 20% less productive than those eating other foods; and (v) pelagic foragers are 40% less productive than those feeding in other habitats. A strong signal of phylogeny suggests that syndromes of similar life-history traits tend to be conservative within clades but also to have evolved independently in different clades. Our results generally support both Lack’s pioneering studies and subsequent research on avian life history.

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: r.m.sibly{at}reading.ac.uk or jhbrown{at}unm.edu.
  • Author contributions: R.M.S., C.C.W., N.A.W., C.V., and J.H.B. designed research; R.M.S., C.C.W., N.A.W., C.V., W.J., and J.H.B. performed research; R.M.S., C.C.W., N.A.W., C.V., and J.H.B. analyzed data; and R.M.S., C.C.W., N.A.W., C.V., W.J., and J.H.B. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1206512109/-/DCSupplemental.

Next
Back to top
Article Alerts
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on PNAS.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Energetics, lifestyle, and reproduction in birds
(Your Name) has sent you a message from PNAS
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the PNAS web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Energetics, lifestyle, and reproduction in birds
Richard M. Sibly, Christopher C. Witt, Natalie A. Wright, Chris Venditti, Walter Jetz, James H. Brown
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 2012, 201206512; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1206512109

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Request Permissions
Share
Energetics, lifestyle, and reproduction in birds
Richard M. Sibly, Christopher C. Witt, Natalie A. Wright, Chris Venditti, Walter Jetz, James H. Brown
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 2012, 201206512; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1206512109
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 118 (8)
Current Issue

Submit

Sign up for Article Alerts

Jump to section

  • Article
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

You May Also be Interested in

Surgeons hands during surgery
Inner Workings: Advances in infectious disease treatment promise to expand the pool of donor organs
Despite myriad challenges, clinicians see room for progress.
Image credit: Shutterstock/David Tadevosian.
Setting sun over a sun-baked dirt landscape
Core Concept: Popular integrated assessment climate policy models have key caveats
Better explicating the strengths and shortcomings of these models will help refine projections and improve transparency in the years ahead.
Image credit: Witsawat.S.
Double helix
Journal Club: Noncoding DNA shown to underlie function, cause limb malformations
Using CRISPR, researchers showed that a region some used to label “junk DNA” has a major role in a rare genetic disorder.
Image credit: Nathan Devery.
Steamboat Geyser eruption.
Eruption of Steamboat Geyser
Mara Reed and Michael Manga explore why Yellowstone's Steamboat Geyser resumed erupting in 2018.
Listen
Past PodcastsSubscribe
Multi-color molecular model
Enzymatic breakdown of PET plastic
A study demonstrates how two enzymes—MHETase and PETase—work synergistically to depolymerize the plastic pollutant PET.
Image credit: Aaron McGeehan (artist).

Similar Articles

Site Logo
Powered by HighWire
  • Submit Manuscript
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS Feeds
  • Email Alerts

Articles

  • Current Issue
  • Special Feature Articles – Most Recent
  • List of Issues

PNAS Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Chemistry
  • Classics
  • Front Matter
  • Physics
  • Sustainability Science
  • Teaching Resources

Information

  • Authors
  • Editorial Board
  • Reviewers
  • Librarians
  • Press
  • Site Map
  • PNAS Updates

Feedback    Privacy/Legal

Copyright © 2021 National Academy of Sciences. Online ISSN 1091-6490