TY - JOUR
T1 - Individual Black-Tailed Godwits Do Not Stick to Single Routes
T2 - A Hypothesis on How Low Population Densities Might Decrease Social Conformity
AU - Jelle Loonstra, A. H.
AU - Verhoeven, Mo A.
AU - Zbyryt, Adam
AU - Schaaf, Ester
AU - Both, Christiaan
AU - Piersma, Theunis
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Yvonne Verkuil for molecular sexing and PTOP (Polish Society for Bird Protection) for giving us access to their properties. We thank Wouter Vansteelant for a stimulating and visionary review of the manuscript. This study was funded by the Spinoza Premium 2014 awarded to TP by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), a grant from the Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds to TP and an anonymous donation to TP. AHJL and MAV conceived the idea and analysed the data; AHJL and ES caught the birds and deployed the transmitters for this study; AHJL wrote an initial draft of the manuscript, which was then jointly rewritten. The authors declare that they have no competing interests. The work was done under license number WPN.6401.126.2015.WL following the Polish Animal Welfare Act.
Funding Information:
We thank Yvonne Verkuil for molecular sexing and PTOP (Polish Society for Bird Protection) for giving us access to their properties. We thank Wouter Vansteelant for a stimulating and visio - nary review of the manuscript. This study was funded by the Spinoza Premium 2014 awarded to TP by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), a grant from the Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds to TP and an anonymous donation to TP. AHJL and MAV conceived the idea and analysed the data; AHJL and ES caught the birds and deployed the transmitters for this study; AHJL wrote an initial draft of the manuscript, which was then jointly rewritten. The authors declare that they have no competing interests. The work was done under license number WPN.6401.126.2015.WL following the Polish Animal Welfare Act.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 ARDEA. All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - The miniaturization of tracking devices is now rapidly increasing our knowledge on the spatiotemporal organization of seasonal migration. So far, most studies aimed at understanding within- and between-individual variation in migratory routines focus on single populations. This has also been the case for continental Black-tailed Godwits Limosa l. limosa (hereafter Godwits), with most work carried out on individuals from the Dutch breeding population, migrating in relatively large numbers in the westernmost part of the range. Here we report the migratory timing and routes of four adult individuals of the same subspecies from the low-density population in eastern Poland and compare this with previously published data on Godwits breeding in The Netherlands. During northward migration, the birds from Poland departed and arrived later from their wintering and breeding grounds. However, on southward migration the Polish breeding Godwits departed earlier, but arrived one month later than the Dutch birds on their wintering grounds in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the small sample size of tracked birds from Poland, we find a significantly higher between-individual variation in timing during southward migration in Polish Godwits as compared to the Dutch Godwits. Furthermore, not only did migratory routes differ, but the few Polish Godwits tracked showed a higher level of between- and within-individual variation in route choice during both southward and northward migration. To explain this remarkable discrepancy, we propose that the properties of transmission of social information may be different between Godwits from a high-density population (i.e. the one in The Netherlands) and a low-density population (in Poland) and that this leads to different levels of canalization. To examine this hypothesis, future studies should not only follow individuals from an early age onwards, but also quantify and experimentally manipulate their social environments during migration.
AB - The miniaturization of tracking devices is now rapidly increasing our knowledge on the spatiotemporal organization of seasonal migration. So far, most studies aimed at understanding within- and between-individual variation in migratory routines focus on single populations. This has also been the case for continental Black-tailed Godwits Limosa l. limosa (hereafter Godwits), with most work carried out on individuals from the Dutch breeding population, migrating in relatively large numbers in the westernmost part of the range. Here we report the migratory timing and routes of four adult individuals of the same subspecies from the low-density population in eastern Poland and compare this with previously published data on Godwits breeding in The Netherlands. During northward migration, the birds from Poland departed and arrived later from their wintering and breeding grounds. However, on southward migration the Polish breeding Godwits departed earlier, but arrived one month later than the Dutch birds on their wintering grounds in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the small sample size of tracked birds from Poland, we find a significantly higher between-individual variation in timing during southward migration in Polish Godwits as compared to the Dutch Godwits. Furthermore, not only did migratory routes differ, but the few Polish Godwits tracked showed a higher level of between- and within-individual variation in route choice during both southward and northward migration. To explain this remarkable discrepancy, we propose that the properties of transmission of social information may be different between Godwits from a high-density population (i.e. the one in The Netherlands) and a low-density population (in Poland) and that this leads to different levels of canalization. To examine this hypothesis, future studies should not only follow individuals from an early age onwards, but also quantify and experimentally manipulate their social environments during migration.
KW - Black-tailed Godwit
KW - long-distance seasonal migration
KW - population exchange
KW - satellite tracking
KW - social learning
U2 - 10.5253/arde.v107i3.a11
DO - 10.5253/arde.v107i3.a11
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85081406555
SN - 0373-2266
VL - 107
SP - 251
EP - 261
JO - Ardea
JF - Ardea
IS - 3
ER -