Time, geography and weather provide insights into the ecological strategy of a migrant species

The effects of cities on quail (Coturnix coturnix) migration: a disturbing story of population connectivity, health, and ecography

“…A collection of trajectories and nodes identifies a quail migratory network, and the route choices made to connect the different route segments. By comparing recoveries of ringed birds across time, we examined how changes in quail movements relate to changes: (1) in cities (indicated by the number of people, the number of graduates, and GDP); (2) in agrosystems (indicated by the areas under cereal and legume cultivation, and cereal and legume production volumes (ISTAT)); (3) in weather (indicated by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)); and (4) in movement ecology (indicated by movement type and direction) (Nadal et al 2019 ). In order to describe and compare migratory trajectories through time, we analyzed the average vector of quail movements (Nadal et al 2022 ).…”

“…Its protandrous nature sees males arriving at breeding grounds ahead of females. The population renewal occurs through successive waves of cohorts, enabling multiple reproductive attempts and maintaining high productivity (Nadal et al 2018 , 2019 ; Nadal and Ponz 2015 ). The historical use of the quail by humans for sustenance dates back so far that ancient records exist detailing its migratory behavior (Kennedy and Grivetti 1980 ), highlighting the longstanding relationship between human societies and this migratory bird.…”

Crossing artificial obstacles during migration: The relative global ecological risks and interdependencies illustrated by the migration of common quail Coturnix coturnix

“…Quail' annual cycle includes four biological stages: wintering, spring migration (arrival), breeding stays, and autumn migration (departure). In Iberian Peninsula, arrivals take place in February-April, breeding stays last through May-July and departures occur in August-October (Nadal et al, 2019). Quail link habitat quality to population demography via movement patterns (Taylor et al, 2016), what initially follows green up for breeding but then abandons reproduction sites when fields are harvested.…”

Lead in terrestrial game birds from Spain

“…(Fontoura et al 2000;Mur 2009). According to Nadal et al (2019), several parts of the Iberian Peninsula are home to sedentary Common Quail populations. As well, 61.2% of the hunted specimens in our study were juveniles (see Supplementary material, Table S1) born in the study area, so this species could be a bioindicator for monitoring in this area.…”