The migration pattern of a monogamous shorebird challenges existing hypotheses explaining the evolution of differential migration

Hedh, Linus; Hedenström, Anders

doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2019.110111

Cited by 5 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…After visually inspecting the data, we excluded all positions between 5 days prior and 20 days after the autumn equinox and between 20 days prior and 5 days after the spring equinox. Given the general migration period of the ringed plover, positioning during movement periods may be affected in the autumn for birds breeding in Abisko (7 out of 12) and during spring for birds breeding at Ottenby (19 out of 23) (Lislevand et al 2017;Hedh and Hedenström 2020).…”

Section: Geolocator Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Departure and arrival times, which define start and termination of migratory and stationary periods, were primarily identified by visually inspecting longitude plots in combination with generated maps (Machín et al 2015;Hedh and Hedenström 2020). This approach is justified in general by the fact that (i) the spatial error is lower in the longitudinal axis compared to latitude (particularly around the equinoxes), and (ii) for the ringed plover in particular by the observations of a general southwestnortheast migratory direction in this species (based on ringing recoveries, Fransson et al 2008), and the potential for fast movements between geographical sites due to high flight speeds (Pennycuick et al 2013).…”

Section: Defining Stationary Periods In Time and Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The pattern also seems to be nested within itself, so that populations breeding on the British Isles (representing the southwestern limit of the European breeding range) are mainly sedentary and breeding populations towards the north "leap-frog" their southern counterparts in subsequent order during autumn migration (Salomonsen 1955). Tracking studies of two European populations have revealed that ringed plovers from southern Sweden utilize wintering sites along the whole European Atlantic coast, including Morocco (Hedh and Hedenström 2020), and ringed plovers from northern Norway winter along the coast of West Africa (Lislevand et al 2017). Also, tracked populations breeding in Arctic Canada and sub-Arctic Russia have been shown to winter in West and East Africa, respectively (Tomkovich et al 2017;Léandri-Breton et al 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here we use light-level geolocator data from two populations of ringed plovers breeding in Arctic (henceforth the 'northern breeding population', NBP) and temperate Sweden (the 'southern breeding population', SBP), and citizen science data on arrival dates for the corresponding regions over 15 years, to investigate how migration distance and variations of the annual cycles within a species affect migratory behaviours. First, we ask whether the NBP winters primarily in West Africa, which based on previous published information on the SBP wintering location (Hedh and Hedenström 2020) should generate a clear leap-frog migration pattern. If so, we first predict that regional arrival dates corresponding to the breeding location for the SBP exhibit larger between year variation compared to the NBP.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Population specific annual cycles and migration strategies in a leap-frog migrant

Hedh

Dänhardt

Hedenström

2021

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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A common migratory pattern in birds is that northerly breeding populations migrate to more southerly non-breeding sites compared to southerly breeding populations (leap-frog migration). Not only do populations experience differences in migration distances, but also different environmental conditions, which may vary spatiotemporally within their annual cycles, creating distinctive selective pressures and migratory strategies. Information about such adaptations is important to understand migratory drivers and evolution of migration patterns. We use light-level geolocators and citizen science data on regional spring arrivals to compare two populations of common ringed plover Charadrius hiaticula breeding at different latitudes. We (1) describe and characterize the annual cycles and (2) test predictions regarding speed and timing of migration. The northern breeding population (NBP) wintered in Africa and the southern (SBP) mainly in Europe. The annual cycles were shifted temporally so that the NBP was always later in all stages. The SBP spent more than twice as long time in the breeding area, but there was no difference in winter. The NBP spent more time on migration in general. Spring migration speed was lower in the SBP compared to autumn speed of both populations, and there was no difference in autumn and spring speed in the NBP. We also found a larger variation in spring arrival times across years in the SBP. This suggests that a complex interaction of population specific timing and variation of breeding onset, length of breeding season, and proximity to the breeding area shape the annual cycle and migratory strategies. Significance statement Migration distance, climate, and the resulting composition of the annual cycle are expected to influence migration strategies and timing in birds. Testing theories regarding migration behaviours are challenging, and intraspecific comparisons over the full annual cycle are still rare. Here we compare the spatiotemporal distributions of two latitudinally separated populations of common ringed plovers using light-level geolocators. We found that there was a larger long-term variation in first arrival dates and that migration speed was slower only in spring in a temperate, short-distance migratory population, compared to an Arctic, long-distance migratory population. This suggests that a complex interaction of population specific timing and variation of breeding onset, length of breeding season and proximity to the breeding area shape the annual cycle and migratory behaviours.

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Section: Geolocator Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Defining Stationary Periods In Time and Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Population specific annual cycles and migration strategies in a leap-frog migrant

Hedh

Dänhardt

Hedenström

2021

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

Self Cite

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“…We also proposed a multifactor hypothesis that added the cost of migration. Recent research by others on differential migration continues to sift the degree to which these explanations for differential migration apply to other species (Gow and Wiebe 2014;MacDonald et al 2016;Deakin et al 2019) and to generate new hypotheses, such as thermal tolerance (Alonso et al 2009) and differential energy requirements (Hedh and Hedenstrom 2019).…”

Section: Differential Migration By Sex and Agementioning

confidence: 99%

What Do Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Have in Common? The Organism in the Middle

Ketterson

2020

The American Naturalist

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Biologists who publish in The American Naturalist are drawn to its unifying mission of covering research in the fields of ecology, evolution, behavior, and integrative biology. Presented here is one scientist's attempt to straddle these fields by focusing on a single organism. It is also an account of how time spent in the field stimulates a naturalist to wonder "why did that animal just do that?" and how research is guided by chance and intention interacting with the scientific literature and the people one meets along the way. With respect to the science, the examples come from bird migration, hormones and their connection to phenotypic integration, sexual and natural selection, and urban ecology. They also come from research on the impact of environmental change on the timing of reproduction and the potential for allochrony in migratory species to influence population divergence.

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Evolution of leapfrog migration: A test of competition‐based hypotheses

Hedh,

Dänhardt,

Hedenström

2024

Ecology

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Leapfrog migration is a common migration pattern in birds where the breeding and wintering latitudes between populations are in reversed latitudinal sequence. Competition for wintering and breeding sites has been suggested to be an ultimate factor, and several competitor‐based hypotheses have been proposed to explain this pattern. If wintering sites close to the breeding sites are favored, competitive exclusion could force subdominant individuals to winter further away. Competitive exclusion could be mediated either through body size or by prior occupancy. The alternative “spring predictability” hypothesis assumes competition for sufficiently close wintering areas, allowing the birds to use autocorrelated weather cues to optimally time spring migration departure. To test predictions and assumptions of these hypotheses, we combined morphometrics, migration, and weather data from four populations of common ringed plover breeding along a latitudinal (56–68° N) and climatic gradient (temperate to Arctic). Critical for our evaluation was that two populations were breeding on the same latitude in subarctic Sweden with the same distance to the closest potential wintering site, but differed in breeding phenology, and wintered in West Africa and Europe, respectively. Thus, while breeding on the same latitude, their winter distribution overlapped with that of an Arctic and temperate population. Body size was largest within the temperate population, but there was no size difference between the two subarctic populations. Populations wintering in Europe arrived there before populations wintering in Africa. The largest variation in the arrival of meteorological spring occurred at the temperate breeding site, while there was almost no difference among the other sites. In general, temperatures at the northernmost wintering area correlated well with each breeding site prior to breeding site‐specific spring arrival. Based on these observations, we conclude that competitive exclusion through body‐size‐related dominance cannot explain leapfrog migration. Furthermore, the assumptions on which the “spring predictability” hypothesis is based did not match the observed wintering ranges either. However, we could not reject the hypothesis that competitive exclusion mediated by prior occupancy in the wintering area could lead to leapfrog migration, and therefore, this hypothesis should be retained as working hypothesis for further work.

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The migration pattern of a monogamous shorebird challenges existing hypotheses explaining the evolution of differential migration

Cited by 5 publications

References 52 publications

Population specific annual cycles and migration strategies in a leap-frog migrant

Population specific annual cycles and migration strategies in a leap-frog migrant

What Do Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Have in Common? The Organism in the Middle

Evolution of leapfrog migration: A test of competition‐based hypotheses

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