Strength of developmental carry-over varies continuously with environmental conditions in a wild bird population

Early-life phenotypes frequently predict adult phenotypes through developmental ‘silver-spoon’ carry-over effects, but how strongly and under what circumstances? Using 40 years of individual-based data from a great tit ( Parus major ) population, we used covariance reaction norms to understand how the natal-to-adult body mass association shifts across temperature, rainfall, and population density gradients during both life stages. We show that the natal–adult mass correlation is substantial (r ≈ 0.7) but strongly environment-dependent. Reaction norm shapes across climatic and density axes point to distinct mechanisms, including compensatory growth under benign adult conditions and density-dependent modulation of early-life differences. We further show that the conditions experienced in adulthood largely drive these patterns and determine whether early-life advantages are retained, even when explicitly tested within an environmental-matching paradigm. Decomposing the correlation using 38 generations of pedigree data revealed no evidence of gene-by-environment interactions. Instead, the observed phenotypic correlation reaction norms could be attributed almost entirely to environmentally-sensitive non-genetic individual differences. Overall, our findings show that climatic and demographic shifts can substantially reshape developmental carry-over without altering the genetic architecture tying body mass across life stages, with implications for how reliably early-life mass can predict individual quality and adult traits in wild animal populations.