Predictors of Juvenile Survival in Birds

Abstract

Abstract The survival probability of birds during the juvenile period, between the end of parental care and adulthood, is highly variable and has a major effect on population dynamics and parental fitness. As such, a large number of studies have attempted to evaluate potential predictors of juvenile survival in birds, especially predictors related to parental care. Lack’s hypothesis linking body reserves accumulated from parental care to the survival of naive juveniles has organized much of this research, but various other predictors have also been investigated and received some support. We reviewed the literature in this area and identified a variety of methodological problems that obscure interpretation of the body of results. Most studies adopted statistical techniques that missed the opportunities to (1) evaluate the relative importance of several predictors, (2) control the confounding effect of correlation among predictor variables, and (3) exploit the information content of collinearity by evaluati...