A general theory of avian migratory connectivity

Somveille, Marius ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6868-5080, Bay, Rachael A., Smith, Thomas B., Marra, Peter P. and Ruegg, Kristen C. (2021) A general theory of avian migratory connectivity. Ecology Letters, 24 (9). pp. 1848-1858. ISSN 1461-023X

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Abstract

Birds exhibit a remarkable array of seasonal migrations. Despite much research describing migratory behaviour, the underlying forces driving how a species’ breeding and wintering populations redistribute each year, that is, migratory connectivity, remain largely unknown. Here, we test the hypothesis that birds migrate in a way that minimises energy expenditure while considering intraspecific competition for energy acquisition, by developing a modelling framework that simulates an optimal redistribution of individuals between breeding and wintering areas. Using 25 species across the Americas, we find that the model accurately predicts empirical migration patterns, and thus offers a general explanation for migratory connectivity based on first ecological and energetic principles. Our model provides a strong basis for exploring additional processes underlying the ecology and evolution of migration, but also a framework for predicting how migration impacts local adaptation across seasons and how environmental change may affect population dynamics in migratory species.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT: The eBird Status and Trends data products are open access and free to use for research, and are downloadable through the R package ebirdst. The banding recoveries data are publically available upon request from the USGS Bird Banding Lab (https://www.usgs.gov/centers/pwrc/science/bird-banding-laboratory?qt-science_center_objects=4#qt-science_center_objects). The tracking data are available in the supplementary materials of Finch et al., (2017), Kramer et al., (2018) and Hill & Renfrew (2019). The genomics data products are available in a public repository on figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5420643. The computer code used for this study is available on GitHub: https://github.com/msomveille/optimal-redistribution-simulator.git. Funding Information: This work was made possible by support from National Geographic to K.R. (WW202R‐17), an NSF CAREER to K.R. (1942313) and a NSF Rules of Life EAGER to R.A.B. (1837940). This work used the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), which is supported by National Science Foundation grant ACI‐1548562.
Uncontrolled Keywords: cost of migration,ebird,genoscape,ideal free distribution,migratory connectivity,optimal migration,ecology, evolution, behavior and systematics ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1100/1105
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
Related URLs:
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 22 Jul 2024 15:31
Last Modified: 31 Oct 2024 00:52
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/95997
DOI: 10.1111/ele.13817

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