The slow-paced life history of many Neotropical birds (e.g., high survival and low fecundity) is hypothesized to increase lifetime fitness through investments in self-maintenance over reproduction relative to their temperate counterparts. Molt is a key investment in self-maintenance and is readily shaped by environmental conditions. As such, variation in molt strategies may be a key mechanism underlying life-history trade-offs and adaptation to new environments. Here, we review molt strategies from a diversity of lowland Neotropical landbirds and examine how variation in molt strategies, characterized by differences in molt insertions, timing, extent, and duration contribute to life-history variation and adaptation to diverse ecological conditions. In addition to our synthesis, we present a case study to examine the relationship between home range size and duration of the definitive prebasic molt of a well-studied subset of Amazonian landbirds. Our results suggest a connection between prolonged molt duration and larger home range size of small-to-medium-sized Amazonian landbirds. Our aims were to identify key gaps in our knowledge of Neotropical bird molt, to stimulate further comparative studies into the evolution of molt strategies, and to highlight how variation in molt strategies may be a key mechanism underlying life-history variation across latitudes.

中文翻译：

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低地新热带陆鸟蜕皮的生态和进化意义

许多新热带鸟类的慢节奏生活史（例如，高存活率和低繁殖力）被假设为通过投资于相对于温带鸟类的自我维持而不是繁殖来增加终生健康。蜕皮是自我维护的一项关键投资，很容易受到环境条件的影响。因此，蜕皮策略的变化可能是生活史权衡和适应新环境的关键机制。在这里，我们回顾了多种低地新热带陆鸟的蜕皮策略，并研究了以蜕皮插入、时间、范围和持续时间的差异为特征的蜕皮策略的变化如何促成生活史的变化和对不同生态条件的适应。除了我们的合成，我们提出了一个案例研究，以研究经过充分研究的亚马逊陆鸟子集的家庭范围大小与最终前基本蜕皮的持续时间之间的关系。我们的研究结果表明，中小型亚马逊陆鸟的蜕皮时间延长与较大的家庭范围大小之间存在联系。我们的目标是找出我们对新热带鸟类蜕皮知识的主要差距，以激发对蜕皮策略演变的进一步比较研究，并强调蜕皮策略的变化可能是跨纬度生活史变化的关键机制。