Figure 1.

Growth trajectories (logarithm of standard length in mm) of three‐spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) over the early compensatory period in the (a) Winter and (b) Spring experiment. Note that the two experiments started on different days, so that day 1 is 21 November 2007 in (a) and 21 February 2008 in (b). The thick horizontal line indicates the period of dietary manipulation (28 days); black circles and dashed line represent the restricted diet and open circles and solid line the ad libitum control. Asterisks indicate significant differences in length between treatment groups (P < 0·05). ‘T1’ and ‘T2’ indicate the timing of swimming trials (i.e. at the end of the period of compensatory growth and 18 weeks later, after the breeding season). The temperature for both groups was kept at 10 °C until the start of the first breeding season (‘B’), at which point the temperature was raised to 14 °C and male sticklebacks were isolated from female sticklebacks (see Materials and methods for more details).