Influence of age and sex on winter site fidelity of sanderlings Calidris alba.

ABSTRACT: Many migratory bird species show high levels of site fidelity to their wintering sites, which confers advantages due to prior knowledge, but may also limit the ability of the individual to move away from degrading sites or to detect alternative foraging opportunities. Winter site fidelity often varies among age groups, but sexual differences have seldom been recorded in birds. We studied a population of individually colour-marked sanderlings wintering in and around the Tejo estuary, a large estuarine wetland on the western coast of Portugal. For 160 individuals, sighted a total of 1,249 times between November 2009 and March 2013, we calculated the probability that they moved among five distinct wintering sites and how this probability is affected by distance between them. To compare site f

SUBMITTER: Lourenco PM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5045889 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature