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Nocturnally migrating songbirds drift when they can and compensate when they must.

ABSTRACT: The shortest possible migratory route for birds is not always the best route to travel. Substantial research effort has established that birds in captivity are capable of orienting toward the direction of an intended goal, but efforts to examine how free-living birds use navigational information under conditions that potentially make direct flight toward that goal inefficient have been limited in spatiotemporal scales and in the number of individuals observed because of logistical and technological limitations. Using novel and recently developed techniques for analysis of Doppler polarimetric weather surveillance radar data, we examined two impediments for nocturnally migrating songbirds in eastern North America following shortest-distance routes: crosswinds and oceans. We found that migrants in flight often drifted sideways on crosswinds, but most strongly compensated for drift when near the Atlantic coast. Coastal migrants' tendency to compensate for wind drift also increased through the night, while no strong temporal differences were observed at inland sites. Such behaviors suggest that birds migrate in an adaptive way to conserve energy by assessing while airborne the degree to which they must compensate for wind drift.

SUBMITTER: Horton KG

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4754638 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Nocturnally migrating songbirds drift when they can and compensate when they must.

Horton Kyle G KG Van Doren Benjamin M BM Stepanian Phillip M PM Hochachka Wesley M WM Farnsworth Andrew A Kelly Jeffrey F JF

Scientific reports 20160216

The shortest possible migratory route for birds is not always the best route to travel. Substantial research effort has established that birds in captivity are capable of orienting toward the direction of an intended goal, but efforts to examine how free-living birds use navigational information under conditions that potentially make direct flight toward that goal inefficient have been limited in spatiotemporal scales and in the number of individuals observed because of logistical and technologi ...[more]

PMID: 26879152

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Project description:Birds are capable of carrying ticks and, consequently, tick-transmitted microorganisms over long distances and across geographical barriers such as oceans and deserts. Ticks are hosts for several species of spotted fever group rickettsiae (SFGR), which can be transmitted to vertebrates during blood meals. In this study, the prevalence of this group of rickettsiae was examined in ticks infesting migratory songbirds by using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). During the 2009 and 2010 spring migration season, 2064 northward-migrating passerine songbirds were examined for ticks at Johnson Bayou, Louisiana. A total of 91 ticks was removed from 35 individual songbirds for tick species identification and spotted fever group rickettsia detection. Ticks were identified as Haemaphysalis juxtakochi (n=38, 42%), Amblyomma longirostre (n=22, 24%), Amblyomma nodosum (n=17, 19%), Amblyomma calcaratum (n=11, 12%), Amblyomma maculatum (n=2, 2%), and Haemaphysalis leporispalustris (n=1, 1%) by comparing their 12S rDNA gene sequence to homologous sequences in GenBank. Most of the identified ticks were exotic species originating outside of the United States. The phylogenetic analysis of the 71 ompA gene sequences of the rickettsial strains detected in the ticks revealed the occurrence of 6 distinct rickettsial genotypes. Two genotypes (corresponding to a total of 28 samples) were included in the Candidatus Rickettsia amblyommii clade (less than 1% divergence), 2 of them (corresponding to a total of 14 samples) clustered with Rickettsia sp. "Argentina" with less than 0.2% sequence divergence, and 2 of them (corresponding to a total of 27 samples), although closely related to the R. parkeri-R. africae lineage (2.50-3.41% divergence), exhibited sufficient genetic divergence from its members to possibly constitute a new rickettsial genotype. Overall, there does not seem to be a specific relationship between exotic tick species, the rickettsiae they harbor, or the reservoir competence of the corresponding bird species.

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Nocturnally migrating songbirds drift when they can and compensate when they must.

Publications

Nocturnally migrating songbirds drift when they can and compensate when they must.

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