Foraging on the wing for fish while migrating over changing landscapes: traveling behaviors vary with available aquatic habitat for Caspian terns.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Birds that forage while covering distance during migration should adjust traveling behaviors as the availability of foraging habitat changes. Particularly, the behavior of those species that depend on bodies of water to find food yet manage to migrate over changing landscapes may be limited by the substantial variation in feeding opportunities along the route.

Methods

Using GPS tracking data, we studied how traveling behaviors vary with available foraging habitat during the long-distance migration of Caspian terns (Hydroprogne caspia), a bird with a specialized diet based on fish that needs bodies of water to forage. We measured individual variation in five traveling behaviors related to foraging along the route and used linear mixed effects models to test the fol

SUBMITTER: Rueda-Uribe C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8892754 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature