Figure 1. Effects of the nutritional treatments on body mass and relative body mass loss.

(a) Mean (±SE) body mass for subjects from the three different nutritional treatments and (b) relative body mass loss during a 3 h food deprivation period for subjects from the different early nutritional treatments, LH, HL and HH. In the LH (low-high) treatment subjects fed on a low quality seed diet until day 17 (nestling period) followed by a protein enriched high quality diet up to day 35 (fledging period). Subjects in the HL (high-low) treatment experienced the nutritional diets vice versa. In the HH treatment (high-high) a high quality protein enriched diet was fed throughout the nestling and fledgling phase (see text for details). * p<0.05.