Abstract
On a population level, individual plasticity in reproductive phenology can provoke either anticipations or delays in the average reproductive timing in response to environmental changes. However, a rigid reliance on photoperiodism can constraint such plastic responses in popula-tions inhabiting temperate latitudes. The regulation of breeding season length may represent a further tool for populations facing changing environments. Nonetheless, this skill was reported only for equatorial, nonphotoperiodic populations. Our goal was to evaluate whether species living in temperate regions and relying on photoperiodism to trigger their reproduction may also be able to regulate breeding sea-son length. During 10 years, we collected 2,500 female reproductive traits of a mammal model species (wild boar Sus scrofa) and applied a novel analytical approach to reproductive patterns in order to observe population-level variations of reproductive timing and synchrony under different weather and resources availability conditions. Under favorable conditions, breeding seasons were anticipated and popula-tion synchrony increased (i.e., shorter breeding seasons). Conversely, poor conditions induced delayed and less synchronous (i.e., longer) breeding seasons. The potential to regulate breeding season length depending on environmental conditions may entail a high resilience of the population reproductive patterns against environmental changes, as highlighted by the fact that almost all mature females were repro-ductive every year.
基金项目
Provincial Administration of Arezzo and the Italian Ministry of Education,University and Research(PRIN 2010-2011)
Provincial Administration of Arezzo and the Italian Ministry of Education,University and Research(20108 TZKHC)
FAR 2020 of the University of Sassari()
NETL
NSTL
维普
万方数据