Finish with a sprint: Evidence for time-selected last leg of migration in a long-distance migratory songbird.

ABSTRACT: Under time-selected migration, birds should choose a strategy for outcompeting rivals over securing access to prime resources at the final destination. Thus, migration can be viewed as a race among individuals where winners are arriving first when conditions are suitable. The sprint migration hypothesis predicts that individuals shift from maximum sustained speed to a final burst of sprint to shorten the transition from migration to breeding (Alerstam, 2006). In this study, we test the hypothesis of a final sprint migration in a long-distance Afro-Palearctic migrant, the collared flycatcher Ficedula albicollis, during autumn and spring, and compare migration strategies between the seasons. In both seasons, collared flycatchers evidently exhibited sprint migration by increasing their

SUBMITTER: Briedis M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6065334 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature