A partial migrant relies upon a range-wide cue set but uses population-specific weighting for migratory timing.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Many birds species range over vast geographic regions and migrate seasonally between their breeding and overwintering sites. Deciding when to depart for migration is one of the most consequential life-history decisions an individual may make. However, it is still not fully understood which environmental cues are used to time the onset of migration and to what extent their relative importance differs across a range of migratory strategies. We focus on departure decisions of a songbird, the Eurasian blackbird Turdus merula, in which selected Russian and Polish populations are full migrants which travel relatively long-distances, whereas Finnish and German populations exhibit partial migration with shorter migration distances.

Methods

We used telemetry data from the

SUBMITTER: Linek N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8686659 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature