ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2008
Control of the annual cycle in birds: endocrine constraints and plasticity in response to ecological variability.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 63 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
63 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The effect of climate change on the duration of avian breeding seasons: a meta-analysis.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2017Pooled it
- Developmental photoperiod alters the onset and capacity for reproduction in male dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis).Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2026Article
- Passive Acoustic Data as Phenological Distributions: Uncovering Signals of Temporal Ecology.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Balancing opposing cues: seasonal shifts in push-pull drivers of migration in a temperate waterfowl species.Movement ecology · 2025Article
- Seasonal patterns of neurogenesis in European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) are region- and sex-specific.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Endocrine and molecular regulation of seasonal avian immune function.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Ecological Drivers of Molt-Breeding Overlap, an Unusual Life-History Strategy of Small-Island Birds?Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Ecological drivers of breeding periodicity in four forest neotropical eagles.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Factors modulating home range and resource use: a case study with Canarian houbara bustards.Movement ecology · 2022Article
- A reaction norm framework for the evolution of learning: how cumulative experience shapes phenotypic plasticity.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2022Article
- Ecdysteroid responses to urban heat island conditions during development of the western black widow spider (Latrodectus hesperus).PloS one · 2022Article
- Hatching phenology is lagging behind an advancing snowmelt pattern in a high-alpine bird.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Magnetic Compass Orientation in a Palaearctic-Indian Night Migrant, the Red-Headed Bunting.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Article
- Plasticity in timing of avian breeding in response to spring temperature differs between early and late nesting species.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- A green wave of saltmarsh productivity predicts the timing of the annual cycle in a long-distance migratory shorebird.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Disruption of energy homeostasis by food restriction or high ambient temperature exposure affects gonadal function in male house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus).Journal of comparative physiology. B, Biochemical, systemic, and environmental physiology · 2020Article
- Shifts in timing and duration of breeding for 73 boreal bird species over four decades.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Variation in female reproductive tract morphology across the reproductive cycle in the zebra finch.PeerJ · 2020Article
- Should I Lay or Should I Grow: Photoperiodic Versus Metabolic Cues in Chickens.Frontiers in physiology · 2020Review
- Factors influencing plasticity in the arrival-breeding interval in a migratory species reacting to climate change.Ecology and evolution · 2019Article
3 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This paper reviews information from ecological and physiological studies to assess how extrinsic factors can modulate intrinsic physiological processes. The annual cycle of birds is made up of a sequence of life-history stages: breeding, moult and migration. Each stage has evolved to occur at the optimum time and to last for the whole duration of time available. Some species have predictable breeding seasons, others are more flexible and some breed opportunistically in response to unpredictable food availability. Photoperiod is the principal environmental cue used to time each stage, allowing birds to adapt their physiology in advance of predictable environmental changes. Physiological (neuroendocrine and endocrine) plasticity allows non-photoperiodic cues to modulate timing to enable individuals to cope with, and benefit from, short-term environmental variability. Although the timing and duration of the period of full gonadal maturation is principally controlled by photoperiod, non-photoperiodic cues, such as temperature, rainfall or food availability, could potentially modulate the exact time of breeding either by fine-tuning the time of egg-laying within the period of full gonadal maturity or, more fundamentally, by modulating gonadal maturation and/or regression. The timing of gonadal regression affects the time of the start of moult, which in turn may affect the duration of the moult. There are many areas of uncertainty. Future integrated studies are required to assess the scope for flexibility in life-history strategies as this will have a critical bearing on whether birds can adapt sufficiently rapidly to anthropogenic environmental changes, in particular climate change.
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