Both short and long distance migrants use energy-minimizing migration strategies in North American herring gulls.

Animal movement Bird migration Ecology Generalist Migration strategy Migratory behaviour Stopover Telemetry Tracking

Journal

Movement ecology
ISSN: 2051-3933
Titre abrégé: Mov Ecol
Pays: England
ID NLM: 101635009

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
2020
Historique:
received: 13 11 2019
accepted: 27 04 2020
entrez: 19 6 2020
pubmed: 19 6 2020
medline: 19 6 2020
Statut: epublish

Résumé

Recent studies have proposed that birds migrating short distances migrate at an overall slower pace, minimizing energy expenditure, while birds migrating long distances minimize time spent on migration to cope with seasonal changes in environmental conditions. We evaluated variability in the migration strategies of Herring Gulls ( Our research revealed that Herring Gulls breeding in the eastern Arctic migrate long distances to spend the winter in the Gulf of Mexico, traveling more than four times farther than gulls from Atlantic Canada during autumn migration. While all populations used indirect routes, the long distance migrants were the least direct. We found that regardless of the distance the population traveled, Herring Gulls migrated at a slower overall migration speed than predicted by Optimal Migration Theory, but the long distance migrants had higher speeds on travel days. While long distance migrants used more stopover days overall, relative to the distance travelled all four populations used a similar number of stopover days. When taken in context with other studies, we expect that the migration strategies of flexible generalist species like Herring Gulls may be more influenced by habitat and food resources than migration distance.

Sections du résumé

BACKGROUND BACKGROUND
Recent studies have proposed that birds migrating short distances migrate at an overall slower pace, minimizing energy expenditure, while birds migrating long distances minimize time spent on migration to cope with seasonal changes in environmental conditions.
METHODS METHODS
We evaluated variability in the migration strategies of Herring Gulls (
RESULTS RESULTS
Our research revealed that Herring Gulls breeding in the eastern Arctic migrate long distances to spend the winter in the Gulf of Mexico, traveling more than four times farther than gulls from Atlantic Canada during autumn migration. While all populations used indirect routes, the long distance migrants were the least direct. We found that regardless of the distance the population traveled, Herring Gulls migrated at a slower overall migration speed than predicted by Optimal Migration Theory, but the long distance migrants had higher speeds on travel days. While long distance migrants used more stopover days overall, relative to the distance travelled all four populations used a similar number of stopover days.
CONCLUSIONS CONCLUSIONS
When taken in context with other studies, we expect that the migration strategies of flexible generalist species like Herring Gulls may be more influenced by habitat and food resources than migration distance.

Identifiants

pubmed: 32549986
doi: 10.1186/s40462-020-00207-9
pii: 207
pmc: PMC7294659
doi:

Types de publication

Journal Article

Langues

eng

Pagination

26

Informations de copyright

© The Author(s) 2020.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Competing interestsThe authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Auteurs

Christine M Anderson (CM)

Department of Biology, Acadia University, 33 Westwood Ave, Wolfville, NS B4P 2R6 Canada.

H Grant Gilchrist (HG)

Wildlife Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, National Wildlife Research Centre, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6 Canada.

Robert A Ronconi (RA)

Canadian Wildlife Service, Environment and Climate Change Canada, 45 Alderney Dr, Dartmouth, NS B2Y 2N6 Canada.

Katherine R Shlepr (KR)

Atlantic Lab for Avian Research, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, P.O. Box 4400, 10 Bailey Drive, Fredericton, NB E3B 5A3 Canada.

Daniel E Clark (DE)

Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, Division of Water Supply Protection, 485 Ware Road, Belchertown, MA 01007 USA.

David A Fifield (DA)

Wildlife Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, 6 Bruce Street, Mount Pearl, NL A1N 4T3 Canada.

Gregory J Robertson (GJ)

Wildlife Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, 6 Bruce Street, Mount Pearl, NL A1N 4T3 Canada.

Mark L Mallory (ML)

Department of Biology, Acadia University, 33 Westwood Ave, Wolfville, NS B4P 2R6 Canada.

Classifications MeSH