Modelling the progression of bird migration with conditional autoregressive models applied to ringing data.

ABSTRACT: Migration is a fundamental stage in the life history of several taxa, including birds, and is under strong selective pressure. At present, the only data that may allow for both an assessment of patterns of bird migration and for retrospective analyses of changes in migration timing are the databases of ring recoveries. We used ring recoveries of the Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica collected from 1908-2008 in Europe to model the calendar date at which a given proportion of birds is expected to have reached a given geographical area ('progression of migration') and to investigate the change in timing of migration over the same areas between three time periods (1908-1969, 1970-1990, 1991-2008). The analyses were conducted using binomial conditional autoregressive (CAR) mixed models. We first con

SUBMITTER: Ambrosini R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4105499 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature