Adjusting risk-taking to the annual cycle of long-distance migratory birds.

ABSTRACT: Life-history theory predicts that current behaviour affects future reproduction, implying that animals should optimise their escape strategies to reflect fitness costs and benefits of premature escape. Both costs and benefits of escape may change temporally with important consequences for the evolution of escape strategies. Moreover, escape strategies of species may differ according to their positions on slow-fast pace of life gradients. We studied risk-taking in long-distance migratory animals, waders (Charadriiformes), during the annual cycle, i.e., breeding in Europe, stopover in the Middle East and wintering in tropical Africa. Phylogenetically informed comparative analyses revealed that risk-taking (measured as flight initiation distance, FID) changed significantly over the year, bein

SUBMITTER: Mikula P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6143617 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature