Repeatability of individual migration routes, wintering sites, and timing in a long-distance migrant bird

van Wijk, Rien E.; Bauer, Silke; Schaub, Michael (2016). Repeatability of individual migration routes, wintering sites, and timing in a long-distance migrant bird. Ecology and evolution, 6(24), pp. 8679-8685. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 10.1002/ece3.2578

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Migratory birds are often faithful to wintering (nonbreeding) sites, and also migration timing is usually remarkably consistent, that is, highly repeatable. Spatiotemporal repeatability can be of advantage for multiple reasons, including familiarity with local resources and predators as well as avoiding the costs of finding a new place, for example, nesting grounds. However, when the environment is variable in space and time, variable site selection and timing might be more rewarding. To date, studies on spatial and temporal repeatability in short-lived long-distance migrants are scarce, most notably of first-time
and subsequent migrations. Here, we investigated repeatability in autumn
migration directions, wintering sites, and annual migration timing in Hoopoes
(Upupa epops), a long-distance migrant, using repeated tracks of adult and first-time migrants. Even though autumn migration directions were mostly the same, individual wintering sites often changed from year to year with distances between wintering sites exceeding 1,000 km. The timing of migration was repeatable within an individual during autumn, but not during spring migration. We suggest that Hoopoes respond to variable environmental conditions such as north–south shifts in rainfall during winter and differing onset of the food availability during spring migration.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE)
08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE) > Conservation Biology

UniBE Contributor:

Schaub, Michael

Subjects:

500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology
500 Science > 590 Animals (Zoology)

ISSN:

2045-7758

Publisher:

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Language:

English

Submitter:

Olivier Roth

Date Deposited:

18 Jul 2017 07:59

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:01

Publisher DOI:

10.1002/ece3.2578

PubMed ID:

28035259

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.93866

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/93866

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