The effects of temperature on nestling growth in a songbird depend on developmental and social context

Climate change can adversely impact animals, especially those that cannot independently thermoregulate or avoid exposure. Cold, hot, and variable temperatures may impede nestling songbird growth due to increased thermoregulatory costs and reduced food delivery by parents. At a broad scale, temperature effects on nestling growth vary across climatic zones, but how temperature effects vary with early-life developmental constraints imposed by the timing of thermoregulatory development, competition with siblings, and the amount of parental care has received less attention. We investigated whether the effect of temperature on the mass of wild barn swallow (Hirundo rustica erythrogaster) nestlings (n = 113 nestlings, 31 nests) in Boulder County, CO depends on timing of exposure during development, relative size within the brood, or level of parental feeding. We found that the effect of minimum temperature differed in early and late development (before versus after putative development of thermoregulatory independence) and may be less pronounced for nestlings that received more parental feeding. We did not find evidence that the smallest nestling in the brood differs from other nestlings in vulnerability to temperature. These findings indicate the existence of fine-scale heterogeneity in which the effects of temperature on nestling development are sensitive to metabolic constraints and early-life social environment, providing key insight into the factors that may ameliorate or exacerbate climate impacts on individual birds.