Individual migration timing of common nightingales is tuned with vegetation and prey phenology at breeding sites
Emmenegger, Tamara LU
; Hahn, Steffen
and Bauer, Silke
(2014)
In BMC Ecology
14.
- Abstract
Background: The timing of migration substantially influences individual fitness. To match peak requirements with peak resource availability, we hypothesized that individual migrants schedule spring migration in close relation to seasonal changes in environmental conditions along the route and particularly, at the breeding destination.To test this hypothesis, we investigated the timing of spring migration in male common nightingales Luscinia megarhynchos, a small Palearctic-African long-distance migrant, by linking spring migration timing to the phenology of local environmental conditions at non-breeding migratory stopover and breeding sites. In particular, we related individual migration decisions (i.e. departure and arrival) of nine... (More)
Background: The timing of migration substantially influences individual fitness. To match peak requirements with peak resource availability, we hypothesized that individual migrants schedule spring migration in close relation to seasonal changes in environmental conditions along the route and particularly, at the breeding destination.To test this hypothesis, we investigated the timing of spring migration in male common nightingales Luscinia megarhynchos, a small Palearctic-African long-distance migrant, by linking spring migration timing to the phenology of local environmental conditions at non-breeding migratory stopover and breeding sites. In particular, we related individual migration decisions (i.e. departure and arrival) of nine males to site-specific vegetation phenology (based on remotely sensed vegetation index) and a proxy of food availability (based on insects' thermal requirements).Results: We found weak relation of departures from non-breeding and no relation of stopover timing with local phenology. However, our results showed that individuals, which departed early from their non-breeding sites and arrived early at the breeding site closely matched spring green-up there. Early arrival at the breeding site meant also a close match with peak food availability for adults and in a time-lagged manner, for offspring.Conclusion: Our findings suggest that male nightingale used cues other than local phenology for their departure decisions from non-breeding grounds and that there is some evidence for equalizing late departures during the course of migration.
(Less)
- author
- Emmenegger, Tamara
LU
; Hahn, Steffen
and Bauer, Silke
- publishing date
- 2014-03-21
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- in
- BMC Ecology
- volume
- 14
- article number
- 9
- pages
- 8 pages
- publisher
- BioMed Central (BMC)
- external identifiers
-
- pmid:24650177
- scopus:84899070202
- ISSN
- 1472-6785
- DOI
- 10.1186/1472-6785-14-9
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- additional info
- Funding Information: We thank the Swiss federal office for environment for contributing financial support for the development of the geolocators. Then we would like to thank Felix Liechti, Valentin Amrhein, Pavel Zehtindjiev and their collaborators for the organisation and conduction of substantial parts of the field work, F. Spina for field accommodation in Italy and Jácint Tökölyi for assistance in the acquisition of NDVI data and Lukas Jenni for comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. This is publication 5590 of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW).
- id
- 00fb9a61-0b80-4870-8187-cc5de7f20bbf
- date added to LUP
- 2021-10-29 11:07:39
- date last changed
- 2024-06-29 21:24:41
@article{00fb9a61-0b80-4870-8187-cc5de7f20bbf,
abstract = {{<p>Background: The timing of migration substantially influences individual fitness. To match peak requirements with peak resource availability, we hypothesized that individual migrants schedule spring migration in close relation to seasonal changes in environmental conditions along the route and particularly, at the breeding destination.To test this hypothesis, we investigated the timing of spring migration in male common nightingales Luscinia megarhynchos, a small Palearctic-African long-distance migrant, by linking spring migration timing to the phenology of local environmental conditions at non-breeding migratory stopover and breeding sites. In particular, we related individual migration decisions (i.e. departure and arrival) of nine males to site-specific vegetation phenology (based on remotely sensed vegetation index) and a proxy of food availability (based on insects' thermal requirements).Results: We found weak relation of departures from non-breeding and no relation of stopover timing with local phenology. However, our results showed that individuals, which departed early from their non-breeding sites and arrived early at the breeding site closely matched spring green-up there. Early arrival at the breeding site meant also a close match with peak food availability for adults and in a time-lagged manner, for offspring.Conclusion: Our findings suggest that male nightingale used cues other than local phenology for their departure decisions from non-breeding grounds and that there is some evidence for equalizing late departures during the course of migration.</p>}},
author = {{Emmenegger, Tamara and Hahn, Steffen and Bauer, Silke}},
issn = {{1472-6785}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{03}},
publisher = {{BioMed Central (BMC)}},
series = {{BMC Ecology}},
title = {{Individual migration timing of common nightingales is tuned with vegetation and prey phenology at breeding sites}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6785-14-9}},
doi = {{10.1186/1472-6785-14-9}},
volume = {{14}},
year = {{2014}},
}