Waiting for the snow to melt…
Reproductive timing is an important determinant of offspring success which ultimately contributes to an individual’s overall fitness. In seasonal environments with short growing seasons, organisms must time reproductive activity so that offspring experience relatively high levels of resource abundance but also have enough time to undergo sufficient ontogenetic development to successfully overwinter. The timing of other life-history events that necessarily precede reproduction such as gonadal maturation, migration, and emergence from diapause may place further constraints on reproductive timing. We investigated the effects of reproductive timing in subalpine populations of the solitary bee Hoplitis fulgida on individual reproductive output and offspring success. Specifically, we examined how timing of nesting in H. fulgida affected both individual reproductive output (given by nest construction rate and total number of brood cells constructed per nest), and offspring success (using larval development as a proxy). We also conducted surveys of H. fulgida floral hosts to determine temporal patterns of resource abundance. Nest construction rate significantly declined over the course of the season but was only explained by the day of the year and was not associated with floral resource abundance in our models. Similarly, the total number of brood cells per nest decreased seasonally but was only explained by the day on which the nest was initiated and not by floral resource abundance. Both results seemed to suggest that H. fulgida individuals are under directional selection for early reproduction; however, the selective pressures that are driving these trends have yet to be investigated.
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