Ambient temperature, clutch size, and daylight are the main drivers of incubation behavior in two neotropical swallows breeding 8,000 km apart

The central dilemma in incubation behaviour is how to allocate time between warming up the clutch and self-preservation activities outside the nest. It is assumed that incubating birds follow a classical framework in which the environmental temperature, the main variable influencing incubation behaviour, and bout duration show a non-linear relationship. In this context, incubating birds would maximize bout duration for most of the temperature range in which they breed. To determine whether this theoretical framework applies to species breeding at different latitudes under extremely different environmental conditions, we collected incubation data from two distant but breeding populations of Tachycineta swallows. T. leucopyga (Chillean swallow) breeds in Ushuaia, Argentina, and T. meyeni (mangrove swallow) breeds in Hill Bank, Belize. These populations do not overlap in terms of ambient temperature; they are exposed to different daylight conditions and the latitudinal differences influence life-history traits such as clutch size. Tachycineta swallows showed similar incubation consistency over 24 hours ([~]75% of nest attendance) but followed different behavioral strategies to achieve this consistency. Daylight duration limited incubation activity in mangrove swallows, but longer nocturnal incubation compensated for shorter days. Larger clutches only took their toll on the Chilean swallows, by shortening their incubation bouts and lengthening their foraging bouts, which affected the length of their daily activity. Overall, both swallow species showed incubation patterns adapted to the local conditions. They responded differently to increasing temperatures, but both species reduced their incubation effort whenever possible. Our results contrast with previous work where maximizing incubation effort was the rule. In our populations, females reduced their incubation effort as soon as weather conditions improved (i.e., increasing temperatures), changing the paradigm of incubation behaviour. Lay summary- In species where only the male or female incubates, they need to find a balance between the time they spend incubating in the nest and the time they spend foraging out of the nest. - The ambient temperature is the most important factor influencing the duration of both behaviours, and birds are thought to respond similarly to the same range of temperatures. - We studied the incubation behaviour of two species of swallows breeding in Belize and Argentina, respectively. - Both species incubated for a similar length of time in 24 hours, but each followed a different strategy depending on clutch size and daylight duration. - Their incubation behaviour was also related to ambient temperature, but differed between populations, suggesting adaptations to local conditions. - We cannot expect different species to show similar responses to ambient temperature under different conditions.