FLUCTUATING ENVIRONMENTS AND CLUTCH SIZE EVOLUTION IN GREAT TITS

Identifies two problems assoicated with field measurements of geometric mean fitness and reanalyzes the great tit Parus major data from Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire, England, taking these problems into account, showing that the magnitude of the effect of fluctuating environments is much smaller than first thought. Additional explanations for the displacement of the average clutch size from the most productive therefore merit consideration. Temporal fluctuations are unlikely to provide the explanation for the observed difference between the average and the most productive clutch size. -from Authors