Revisiting Perdeck's massive avian migration experiments debunks alternative social interpretations

TY - JOUR

T1 - Revisiting Perdeck's massive avian migration experiments debunks alternative social interpretations

AU - Pot, M.T.

AU - Visser, M.E.

AU - Helm, B.

AU - von Rönn, J.A.C.

AU - van der Jeugd, H.P.

N1 - Data archiving: figshare

PY - 2024/7/3

Y1 - 2024/7/3

N2 - Whether avian migrants can adapt to their changing world depends on the relative importance of genetic and environmental variation for the timing and direction of migration. In the classic series of field experiments on avian migration, A. C. Perdeck discovered that translocated juveniles failed to reach goal areas, whereas translocated adults performed ‘true-goal navigation’. His translocations of > 14 000 common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) suggested that genetic mechanisms guide juveniles into a population-specific direction, i.e. ‘vector navigation’. However, alternative explanations involving social learning after release in juveniles could not be excluded. By adding historical data from translocation sites, data that was unavailable in Perdeck's days, and by integrated analyses including the original data, we could not explain juvenile migrations from possible social information upon release. Despite their highly social behaviour, our findings are consistent with the idea that juvenile starlings follow inherited information and independently reach their winter quarters. Similar to more solitarily migrating songbirds, starlings would require genetic change to adjust the migration route in response to global change.

AB - Whether avian migrants can adapt to their changing world depends on the relative importance of genetic and environmental variation for the timing and direction of migration. In the classic series of field experiments on avian migration, A. C. Perdeck discovered that translocated juveniles failed to reach goal areas, whereas translocated adults performed ‘true-goal navigation’. His translocations of > 14 000 common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) suggested that genetic mechanisms guide juveniles into a population-specific direction, i.e. ‘vector navigation’. However, alternative explanations involving social learning after release in juveniles could not be excluded. By adding historical data from translocation sites, data that was unavailable in Perdeck's days, and by integrated analyses including the original data, we could not explain juvenile migrations from possible social information upon release. Despite their highly social behaviour, our findings are consistent with the idea that juvenile starlings follow inherited information and independently reach their winter quarters. Similar to more solitarily migrating songbirds, starlings would require genetic change to adjust the migration route in response to global change.

U2 - 10.1098/rsbl.2024.0217

DO - 10.1098/rsbl.2024.0217

M3 - Article

SN - 1744-9561

VL - 20

JO - Biology Letters

JF - Biology Letters

IS - 7

M1 - 20240217

ER -