Age-Specific Phenology and Reproductive Success Senescence Vary with Environmental Age in a Wild Bird

AbstractSenescence is ubiquitous yet highly variable among species, populations, and individuals, for reasons that are poorly understood. It is not clear how environmental conditions affect senescence, especially in the wild. We explored the influence of environment on the degree of laying date age-specific variation and reproductive success senescence in wild blue tits. We disentangled the effects of age from those of previously encountered environmental conditions by introducing two complementary estimates of "relative environmental age." These estimates quantify the cumulative past environment experienced by an individual through two population-level metrics: average breeding failure and adult mortality. Results confirmed that laying date first advanced and annual reproductive success first increased with age up until about 3 years old, when these trends were reversed, consistent with a senescent decline. Both proxies for environmental conditions influenced laying date age-specific rates, such that females experiencing a more favorable environment had faster phenological decline. Conversely, environmental age did not affect reproductive success and its senescence. This study demonstrates that past environment can shape phenological age-specific change beyond the effects of chronological age and suggests that senescence will be best understood by investigating the deterioration of performances with accumulating exposure to detrimental conditions across a variety of traits.