In vertebrates, stressors such as starvation or predator attacks stimulate the rapid elevation of circulating glucocorticoid hormones, triggering physiological and behavioral responses that aid immediate survival but simultaneously inhibit reproduction. This stress response has been proposed to serve as a physiological mediator of life-history trade-offs: when the value of current reproduction is high relative to the value of future reproduction and survival, a mitigated stress response is expected to enable successful breeding and maximize fitness. Using phylogenetic comparative analyses, we investigated baseline and peak stress-induced plasma corticosterone levels during parental care in 64 bird species. We found that (1) species with a higher value of the current brood relative to future breeding mounted weaker corticosterone responses during acute stress, and (2) females in species with more female-biased parental care had weaker corticosterone responses. These results support the brood value hypothesis, suggesting that the stress response evolves as an adaptive basis for life-history strategies. Further, we found that (3) baseline corticosterone correlated positively with brood value and negatively with body mass, and (4) peak corticosterone was greater in species breeding at higher latitudes. The latter findings suggest that circulating corticosterone concentrations might be matched to the anticipated demands and risks during nesting.

Summary 1.Urbanized habitats differ from natural ones in several ecological features, including climate, food availability, strength of predation and competition. Although the effects of urbanization on avian community composition are well known, there is much less information about how individual birds are affected by these human-generated habitat differences. 2. In this study we investigated the relationships between the morphological characteristics and the degree of habitat urbanization in house sparrows, Passer domesticus (Linne 1758) . We collected data for more than 1000 non-breeding adult birds in Hungary between 1997 and 2006, from seven sites including farmlands, suburban areas and city centres. 3. We found that the body mass, tarsus length and body condition of free-living sparrows differed among the sites: birds in more urbanized habitats were consistently smaller and in worse condition than birds in more rural habitats. A composite measure of habitat urbanization (based on building density, road density and vegetation cover) explained over 75% of variance between sites in the studied traits, after we controlled for the effects of sex, year, season and time of capture. 4. The difference in body mass between rural and urban sparrows was significant when birds were kept in aviaries under identical conditions, with constant ad libitum food availability. It is therefore unlikely that the reduced body size and condition of urban sparrows are a consequence of reduced access to food for adults (e.g. due to strong competition), or their short-term responses to high food predictability (e.g. by strategic mass regulation). 5. We suggest that habitat differences in nestling development or adaptive divergence of sparrow populations due to distinct environmental conditions (such as differing predation pressure) may account for the differences along the urbanization gradient.

Urbanization can have marked effects on plant and animal populations' phenology, population size, predator-prey, interactions and reproductive success. These aspects are rarely studied simultaneously in a single system, and some are rarely investigated, e.g., how insect phenology responds to urban development. Here, we study a tri-trophic system of trees, phytophagous insects (caterpillars), and insectivorous birds (Great Tits) to assess how urbanization influences (1) the phenology of each component of this system, (2) insect abundance, and (3) avian reproductive success. We use data from two urban and two forest sites in Hungary, central Europe, collected over four consecutive years. Despite a trend of earlier leaf emergence in urban sites, there is no evidence for an earlier peak in caterpillar abundance. Thus, contrary to the frequently stated prediction in the literature, the earlier breeding of urban bird populations is not associated with an earlier peak in caterpillar availability. Despite this the seasonal dynamics of caterpillar biomass exhibited striking differences between habitat types with a single clear peak in forests, and several much smaller peaks in urban sites. Caterpillar biomass was higher in forests than urban areas across the entire sampling period, and between 8.5 and 24 times higher during the first brood's chick-rearing period. This higher biomass was not associated with taller trees in forest sites, or with tree species identity, and occurred despite most of our focal trees being native to the study area. Urban Great Tits laid smaller clutches, experienced more frequent nestling mortality from starvation, reared fewer offspring to fledging age, and their fledglings had lower body mass. Our study strongly indicates that food limitation is responsible for lower avian reproductive success in cities, which is driven by reduced availability of the preferred nestling diet, i.e., caterpillars, rather than phenological shifts in the timing of peak food availability.