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A full annual perspective on sex-biased migration timing in long-distance migratory birds

Briedis, Martins ; Bauer, Silke ; Adamík, Peter ; Alves, José A. ; Costa, Joana S. ; Emmenegger, Tamara LU orcid ; Gustafsson, Lars LU ; Koleček, Jaroslav ; Liechti, Felix and Meier, Christoph M. , et al. (2019) In Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 286(1897).
Abstract

In many taxa, the most common form of sex-biased migration timing is protandry—the earlier arrival of males at breeding areas. Here we test this concept across the annual cycle of long-distance migratory birds. Using more than 350 migration tracks of small-bodied trans-Saharan migrants, we quantify differences in male and female migration schedules and test for proximate determinants of sex-specific timing. In autumn, males started migration about 2 days earlier, but this difference did not carry over to arrival at the non-breeding sites. In spring, males on average departed from the African non-breeding sites about 3 days earlier and reached breeding sites ca 4 days ahead of females. A cross-species comparison revealed large variation... (More)

In many taxa, the most common form of sex-biased migration timing is protandry—the earlier arrival of males at breeding areas. Here we test this concept across the annual cycle of long-distance migratory birds. Using more than 350 migration tracks of small-bodied trans-Saharan migrants, we quantify differences in male and female migration schedules and test for proximate determinants of sex-specific timing. In autumn, males started migration about 2 days earlier, but this difference did not carry over to arrival at the non-breeding sites. In spring, males on average departed from the African non-breeding sites about 3 days earlier and reached breeding sites ca 4 days ahead of females. A cross-species comparison revealed large variation in the level of protandry and protogyny across the annual cycle. While we found tight links between individual timing of departure and arrival within each migration season, only for males the timing of spring migration was linked to the timing of previous autumn migration. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that protandry is not exclusively a reproductive strategy but rather occurs year-round and the two main proximate determinants for the magnitude of sex-biased arrival times in autumn and spring are sex-specific differences in departure timing and migration duration.

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publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
keywords
Annual cycle, Geolocator, Long-distance migrant, Migration phenology, Protandry, Protogyny
in
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
volume
286
issue
1897
article number
20182821
pages
9 pages
publisher
Royal Society Publishing
external identifiers
  • pmid:30963841
  • scopus:85062730801
ISSN
0962-8452
DOI
10.1098/rspb.2018.2821
language
English
LU publication?
no
additional info
Funding Information: Financial support was provided by the Swiss Ornithological Institute. The Swiss Federal Office for the Environment supported geolocator development (UTF-Nr. 254, 332, 363, 400); individual tracking projects were funded by the Czech Science Foundation (13-06451S to P.A. and P.P.), Palacký University grant scheme (IGA_PrF_2018_016 to P.A.), Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (SFRH/BPD/91527/2012 and SFRH/BD/113580/2015 to J.A.A. and J.S.C.), the Swedish Research Council (to L.G.), Institute of Vertebrate biology (RVO: 68081766 to J.K. and P.P.), and the Swiss National Science Foundation (31003A_160265 to S.H. and S.B.). Publisher Copyright: © 2019 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
id
389f4929-2c32-4e00-8f48-f7192592d3d6
date added to LUP
2021-10-29 11:01:56
date last changed
2024-04-06 10:31:20
@article{389f4929-2c32-4e00-8f48-f7192592d3d6,
  abstract     = {{<p>In many taxa, the most common form of sex-biased migration timing is protandry—the earlier arrival of males at breeding areas. Here we test this concept across the annual cycle of long-distance migratory birds. Using more than 350 migration tracks of small-bodied trans-Saharan migrants, we quantify differences in male and female migration schedules and test for proximate determinants of sex-specific timing. In autumn, males started migration about 2 days earlier, but this difference did not carry over to arrival at the non-breeding sites. In spring, males on average departed from the African non-breeding sites about 3 days earlier and reached breeding sites ca 4 days ahead of females. A cross-species comparison revealed large variation in the level of protandry and protogyny across the annual cycle. While we found tight links between individual timing of departure and arrival within each migration season, only for males the timing of spring migration was linked to the timing of previous autumn migration. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that protandry is not exclusively a reproductive strategy but rather occurs year-round and the two main proximate determinants for the magnitude of sex-biased arrival times in autumn and spring are sex-specific differences in departure timing and migration duration.</p>}},
  author       = {{Briedis, Martins and Bauer, Silke and Adamík, Peter and Alves, José A. and Costa, Joana S. and Emmenegger, Tamara and Gustafsson, Lars and Koleček, Jaroslav and Liechti, Felix and Meier, Christoph M. and Procházka, Petr and Hahn, Steffen}},
  issn         = {{0962-8452}},
  keywords     = {{Annual cycle; Geolocator; Long-distance migrant; Migration phenology; Protandry; Protogyny}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{02}},
  number       = {{1897}},
  publisher    = {{Royal Society Publishing}},
  series       = {{Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences}},
  title        = {{A full annual perspective on sex-biased migration timing in long-distance migratory birds}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2821}},
  doi          = {{10.1098/rspb.2018.2821}},
  volume       = {{286}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}