Abstracts - Deutsche Zoologische Gesellschaft

Evolutionary Biology Symposium 41O EB.6 (Sa) - ENCommon origin and common environment effects on offspring performance in thecoal tit Periparus ater: a balanced cross-foster experimentTim Schmoll 1 , Wolfgang Winkel 2 , Thomas Lubjuhn 11Institut für Evolutionsbiologie & Ökologie, Universität Bonn; 2 Institut für Vogelforschung “VogelwarteHelgoland”Phenotypic variation between individuals within natural populations is a ubiquitous phenomenon.In many contexts it is important to assess how much phenotypic variation may be due to genotypicvariation, especially to additive genetic variation determining trait heritability. Examples include thepotential for evolutionary response to environmental change or the magnitude of genetic benefitsthat may be accomplished by mate choice. But estimating additive genetic variances in the fieldis not always straightforward, for example when offspring of high-quality parents are brought upin high-quality microhabitats and thus the resemblance due to additive genetic effects will be confoundeddue to genotype-environment correlations and non-genetic parental effects. Here we analysephenotypic variation of offspring traits in a population of the coal tit Periparus ater, a sociallymonogamous, territorial passerine bird with biparental care. Traits investigated include body sizeand fledgling body condition as well as local recruitment, a major predictor of lifetime reproductivesuccess in passerine birds. Applying mixed effects models we first address natural variation betweenbroods in these traits and then use a balanced cross-foster design to experimentally separate effectsof a common origin (i.e. genetic effects as well as maternal effects) from effects of a common offspringrearing environment.O EB.7 (Sa) - ENLife-history evolution in a changing worldThomas S. Hoffmeister 1 , Louise E.M. Vet 2 , Patrick Coquillard 3 , Eric Wajnberg 31Populationsökologie, Universität Bremen; 2 Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Heteren, NL;3I.N.R.A. Sophia Antipolis, FranceGlobal environmental changes include the fragmentation of habitats as well as their stability withinand across seasons. For instance, imagine a large continuous environment with more or less constantresource availability contrasted with habitat islands in which, due to seasonal fluctuations, resourcesmight be present at one time and absent at other times. The latter allows animals to forage locally inone generation but forces them to disperse to other such habitat islands in other generations. In such asituation, many insects that forage for oviposition resources like butterflies searching for host plantsand parasitoid wasps hunting for host insects face the dilemma that they need to trade-off fecundityagainst the lifetime they can invest into foraging for oviposition sites. Using evolutionary algorithmswe analysed optimal trade-offs for insects facing different environments, and the optimal plasticity– the capability of adjusting the fecundity-survival trade-off within a lifetime – when such plasticityis costly. Additionally, we explored the effect of competition on these life-history strategies.