Natal experience and pre-breeding environmental conditions affect lay date plasticity in Savannah Sparrows.

Phenotypic plasticity allows organisms to adjust the timing of life-history events in response to environmental and demographic conditions. Shifts by individuals in the timing of breeding with respect to variation in age and temperature are well documented in nature, and these changes are known to scale to affect population dynamics. However, relatively little is known about how organisms alter phenology in response to other demographic and environmental factors.