Ontogenetic shifts from social to experiential learning drive avian migration timing.

ABSTRACT: Migrating animals may benefit from social or experiential learning, yet whether and how these learning processes interact or change over time to produce observed migration patterns remains unexplored. Using 16 years of satellite-tracking data from 105 reintroduced whooping cranes, we reveal an interplay between social and experiential learning in migration timing. Both processes dramatically improved individuals' abilities to dynamically adjust their timing to track environmental conditions along the migration path. However, results revealed an ontogenetic shift in the dominant learning process, whereby subadult birds relied on social information, while mature birds primarily relied on experiential information. These results indicate that the adjustment of migration phenology in response t

SUBMITTER: Abrahms B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8677782 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature