Dataset Information

Weather at the winter and stopover areas determines spring migration onset, progress, and advancements in Afro-Palearctic migrant birds.

ABSTRACT: Climate change causes changes in the timing of life cycle events across all trophic groups. Spring phenology has mostly advanced, but large, unexplained, variations are present between and within species. Each spring, migratory birds travel tens to tens of thousands of kilometers from their wintering to their breeding grounds. For most populations, large uncertainties remain on their exact locations outside the breeding area, and the time spent there or during migration. Assessing climate (change) effects on avian migration phenology has consequently been difficult due to spatial and temporal uncertainties in the weather potentially affecting migration timing. Here, we show for six trans-Saharan long-distance migrants that weather at the wintering and stopover grounds almost entirely (?80%) explains interannual variation in spring migration phenology. Importantly, our spatiotemporal approach also allows for the systematic exclusion of influences at other locations and times. While increased spring temperatures did contribute strongly to the observed spring migration advancements over the 55-y study period, improvements in wind conditions, especially in the Maghreb and Mediterranean, have allowed even stronger advancements. Flexibility in spring migration timing of long-distance migrants to exogenous factors has been consistently underestimated due to mismatches in space, scale, time, and weather variable type.

SUBMITTER: Haest B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7382219 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Weather at the winter and stopover areas determines spring migration onset, progress, and advancements in Afro-Palearctic migrant birds.

Haest Birgen B Hüppop Ommo O Bairlein Franz F

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20200629 29

Climate change causes changes in the timing of life cycle events across all trophic groups. Spring phenology has mostly advanced, but large, unexplained, variations are present between and within species. Each spring, migratory birds travel tens to tens of thousands of kilometers from their wintering to their breeding grounds. For most populations, large uncertainties remain on their exact locations outside the breeding area, and the time spent there or during migration. Assessing climate (chang ...[more]

PMID: 32601181

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Project description:Anthropogenic alterations of woodland habitat may influence stopover biology, which in turn could alter the stress physiology of migratory landbirds. Woodland stopover habitats are scarce in the Northern Prairie region of North America and consist of native riparian corridor woodlands (corridors) and smaller, more isolated woodlots of anthropogenic origin around farmsteads (woodlots). Corridor habitats have been greatly reduced since the time of European settlement, but woodlot habitats have appeared over this same time period. In this study, we compared stopover biology and stress physiology of migratory landbirds using natural and anthropogenic woodland habitats. We first tested for differences between birds in the two habitats for baseline corticosterone (CORTB) and the magnitude of the stress response for individual species, taxonomic families and foraging guilds. Plasma corticosterone increased significantly for all bird groups in both habitats following 30?min of restraint stress (CORT30), and neither CORTB nor the magnitude of the stress response (CORT30?-?CORTB) differed significantly between birds in the two habitats. Secondly, because CORTB levels are often elevated and CORT secretion following a stressor is often suppressed for birds in poor body condition, we hypothesized that woodland migrants with higher fattening rates would show reduced CORTB and a robust stress response. We tested this hypothesis by assessing the relationships between plasma corticosterone and plasma metabolites associated with refuelling. We found that CORTB was negatively associated and the magnitude of the stress response positively associated with plasma triglycerides (an indicator of fat deposition), with opposite patterns for corticosterone and plasma ?-hydroxybutyrate (an indicator of fat catabolism). These data suggest that both corridor and woodlot habitats serve as effective stopover habitat and that the reduction of corridor habitat and increased reliance on anthropogenic woodlots is not detrimental to the stress physiology of migrants in a region with limited woodland habitats.

Project description:BackgroundThe Palearctic region supports relatively few avian species, yet recent molecular studies have revealed that cryptic lineages likely still persist unrecognized. A broad survey of cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) sequences, or DNA barcodes, can aid on this front by providing molecular diagnostics for species assignment. Barcodes have already been extensively surveyed in the Nearctic, which provides an interesting comparison to this region; faunal interchange between these regions has been very dynamic. We explored COI sequence divergence within and between species of Palearctic birds, including samples from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. As of yet, there is no consensus on the best method to analyze barcode data. We used this opportunity to compare and contrast three different methods routinely employed in barcoding studies: clustering-based, distance-based, and character-based methods.ResultsWe produced COI sequences from 1,674 specimens representing 398 Palearctic species. These were merged with published COI sequences from North American congeners, creating a final dataset of 2,523 sequences for 599 species. Ninety-six percent of the species analyzed could be accurately identified using one or a combination of the methods employed. Most species could be rapidly assigned using the cluster-based or distance-based approach alone. For a few select groups of species, the character-based method offered an additional level of resolution. Of the five groups of indistinguishable species, most were pairs, save for a larger group comprising the herring gull complex. Up to 44 species exhibited deep intraspecific divergences, many of which corresponded to previously described phylogeographic patterns and endemism hotspots.ConclusionCOI sequence divergence within eastern Palearctic birds is largely consistent with that observed in birds from other temperate regions. Sequence variation is primarily congruent with taxonomic boundaries; deviations from this trend reveal overlooked biological patterns, and in some cases, overlooked species. More research is needed to further refine the taxonomic status of some Palearctic birds, but large genetic surveys such as this may facilitate this effort. DNA barcodes are a practical means for rapid species assignment, although efficient analytical methods will likely require a two-tiered approach to differentiate closely related pairs of species.

Dataset Information

Weather at the winter and stopover areas determines spring migration onset, progress, and advancements in Afro-Palearctic migrant birds.

Publications

Weather at the winter and stopover areas determines spring migration onset, progress, and advancements in Afro-Palearctic migrant birds.

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