Corticosterone and timing of migratory departure in a songbird.

ABSTRACT: Bird migration entails replenishing fuel stores at stopover sites. There, individuals make daily decisions whether to resume migration, and must also decide their time of departure. Variation in departure timing affects the total time required to complete a migratory journey, which in turn affects fitness through arrival time at the breeding and wintering grounds. It is well established that stopover departure decisions are based on cues from innate rhythms, intrinsic factors and extrinsic factors. Yet, virtually nothing is known about the physiological mechanism(s) linking these cues to departure decisions. Here, we show for a nocturnal migratory songbird, the northern wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe), that baseline corticosterone levels of birds at stopover increased both over the migratory

SUBMITTER: Eikenaar C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5247501 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature