Individuality in northern lapwing migration and its link to timing of breeding

Abstract

We tracked eight adult northern lapwings Vanellus vanellus (six females and two males) from a Dutch breeding colony by light-level geolocation year-round, three of them for multiple years. We show that birds breeding virtually next to each other may choose widely separated wintering grounds, stretching from nearby the colony west towards the UK and Ireland, and southwest through France into Iberia and Morocco. However, individual lapwings appeared relatively faithful to a chosen wintering area, and timing of outward and homeward migration can be highly consistent between years. Movements of migratory individuals were usually direct and fast, with some birds covering distances of approximately 2000 km within 2 to 4 days of travel. The two males wintered closest and returned earliest to the breeding colony. The female lapwings returned well before the onset of breeding, spending a pre-laying period of 19 to 54 days in the wider breeding area. Despite the potential for high migration speeds, the duration that birds were absent from the breeding area increased with distance to wintering areas, a pattern which was mainly driven by an earlier outward migration of birds heading for more distant wintering grounds. Moreover, females that overwintered closer to colony bred earlier. A large variation in migration strategies found even within a single breeding colony has likely supported the species' responsiveness to recent climate change as evidenced by a shortened migration distance and an advanced timing of reproduction in Dutch lapwings since the middle of the 20th century.Migration strategies may vary between species, populations, individuals and between years within an individual. Individuals from a particular breeding population may migrate to the same wintering area or they may spread out over much of the non-breeding range. These connections between breeding and non-breeding areas of a migratory species are called 'migratory connectivity', and the strength of migratory connectivity has implications for the species ecology, evolution and conservation (Webster et al. 2002). Furthermore, the choice of a certain wintering area and migratory strategy may affect annual schedules including timing of events at breeding area (Marra et al. 1998), which demonstrates the importance to follow individuals throughout the annual cycle. Knowledge of variation in migratory routines within and between individuals of a population is also important to understanding and predicting the ability of species responses to environmental change, including climate change (Conklin et al. 2013).We employed GLS (Global Location Sensing, also called 'light-level geolocation' or just 'geolocation') technique based on the analysis of diurnal changes in light levels to track annual movements of northern lapwings (Vanellus vanellus; here synonymously termed 'lapwing(s)'). Archival tags ('geolocators') record light intensities to determine dusk and dawn times from which geographical positions (two fixes daily) are calculated; day (night) length determin...

Migration route, stopping sites, and non-breeding destinations of adult Black-tailed Godwits breeding in southwest Fryslân, The Netherlands

“…At the same time, however, tracking the same individuals across years (e.g., Eichhorn et al 2017;Ruthrauff et al 2019) is making it increasingly clear that individuality in space use is common within species. This means that space use is not only species-or population specific, but also specific to individuals.…”

“…It is also becoming increasingly clear that populations vary with respect to the similarity or dissimilarity among the migratory routines of individuals (Sergio et al 2014;Lok et al 2015;Eichhorn et al 2017;Ruthrauff et al 2019). Determining that individuals have different migratory routines and testing whether the causes of such individual variation are the same among populations are exciting avenues of research in their own right (Mellone et al 2012;Trierweiler et al 2014).…”

Determining hatch dates for skuas: an egg density calibration curve

“…All methods require some degree of calibration and verification. These techniques are more economical and efficient for general field use than the technology-based monitoring generally utilised for other primary purposes (Grémillet et al 2004;Renfrew & Ribic 2012;Mougeot et al 2014;Islam et al 2015;Eichhorn et al 2017).…”