Grand Challenges in Migration Biology

Abstract

Billions of animals migrate each year. To successfully reach their destination, migrants must have evolved an appropriate genetic program and suitable developmental, morphological, physiological, biomechanical, behavioral, and life-history traits. Moreover, they must interact successfully with biotic and abiotic factors in their environment. Migration therefore provides an excellent model system in which to address several of the "grand challenges" in organismal biology. Previous research on migration, however, has often focused on a single aspect of the phenomenon, largely due to methodological, geographical, or financial constraints. Integrative migration biology asks 'big questions' such as how, when, where, and why animals migrate, which can be answered by examining the process from multiple ecological and evolutionary perspectives, incorporating multifaceted knowledge from various other scientific disciplines, and using new technologies and modeling approaches, all within the context of an annual cycle. Adopting an integrative research strategy will provide a better understanding of the interactions between biological levels of organization, of what role migrants play in disease transmission, and of how to conserve migrants and the habitats upon which they depend.

Migration by soaring or flapping: numerical atmospheric simulations reveal that turbulence kinetic energy dictates bee-eater flight mode

“…Predicting animal behaviour during migration using simulations of atmospheric conditions is important for understanding the abundance and distribution of aerial migrants on multiple temporal and spatial scales, and for mitigating hazardous implications of animal migration, such as bird-aircraft collisions [44]. The present findings demonstrate that an integrated research framework coupling animal movement data with atmospheric modelling may prove useful for a wide range of aero-ecological studies by overcoming the practical limitation of estimating the meteorological conditions aloft [1,2].…”

Route Fidelity during Marine Megafauna Migration

“…By focussing our analyses on route fidelity movements, our research is directly relevant to positional orientation during migration, one of the greatest unknowns in animal navigation science (Gould, 2004). By considering a diverse suite of species and scientific disciplines, our research represents a direct response to growing calls for more integrative research on animal migration and navigation (Bowlin et al, 2010;Hays et al, 2016).…”

Understanding soaring bird migration through interactions and decisions at the individual level

“…In conclusion we would like to emphasize that in its current form Simsoar is a tool to study soaring bird migration for various species, and as such it is instrumental for some of the aims and research questions that require a more integrative research approach (Bauer et al, 2009;Bowlin et al, 2010). However, it can with relative ease be adapted to study a wider variety of bird movements, ranging from the searching behaviour of soaring scavengers (Deygout et al, 2009;Jackson et al, 2008) to goal oriented movement in general where thermals are replaced by suitable stopover habitat (Klaassen et al, 2006).…”