The Breeding Distribution of a Migratory Bird Fluctuates With Nonbreeding Season Rainfall Over the Last Century.

ABSTRACT: Species responses to climate change include shifts in distribution, abundance, and range limits. Predicting such shifts for migratory birds is inherently complex given the diversity of ways climate change can impact species throughout their annual cycles. For example, recent findings demonstrate that the breeding origin of a nonbreeding population of American redstarts (Setophaga ruticilla ) in Jamaica is shifting southward in response to prolonged drought on the nonbreeding grounds, differentially causing lower survival in longer migrating individuals. Here, we examine how widespread this mechanism has operated over the past century and across the range of this species. We sampled tail feathers from redstart museum specimens and live birds from three time periods dating back to the turn o

SUBMITTER: Stevens HC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12529644 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature