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Interspecific Comparison of the Performance of Soaring Migrants in Relation to Morphology, Meteorological Conditions and Migration Strategies

BACKGROUND: Performance of migrating birds can be affected by a number of intrinsic and extrinsic factors like morphology, meteorological conditions and migration strategies. We compared travel speeds of four raptor species during their crossing of the Sahara desert. Focusing the analyses on this re...

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Autores principales: Mellone, Ugo, Klaassen, Raymond H. G., García-Ripollés, Clara, Limiñana, Ruben, López-López, Pascual, Pavón, Diego, Strandberg, Roine, Urios, Vicente, Vardakis, Michalis, Alerstam, Thomas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3388085/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22768314
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0039833
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author Mellone, Ugo
Klaassen, Raymond H. G.
García-Ripollés, Clara
Limiñana, Ruben
López-López, Pascual
Pavón, Diego
Strandberg, Roine
Urios, Vicente
Vardakis, Michalis
Alerstam, Thomas
author_facet Mellone, Ugo
Klaassen, Raymond H. G.
García-Ripollés, Clara
Limiñana, Ruben
López-López, Pascual
Pavón, Diego
Strandberg, Roine
Urios, Vicente
Vardakis, Michalis
Alerstam, Thomas
author_sort Mellone, Ugo
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Performance of migrating birds can be affected by a number of intrinsic and extrinsic factors like morphology, meteorological conditions and migration strategies. We compared travel speeds of four raptor species during their crossing of the Sahara desert. Focusing the analyses on this region allows us to compare different species under equivalent conditions in order to disentangle which factors affect migratory performance. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDING: We tracked raptors using GPS satellite transmitters from Sweden, Spain and Italy, and evaluated their migratory performance at both an hourly and a daily scale. Hourly data (flight speed and altitude for intervals of two hours) were analyzed in relation to time of day, species and season, and daily data (distance between roosting sites) in relation to species, season, day length and tailwind support. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Despite a clear variation in morphology, interspecific differences were generally very small, and did only arise in spring, with long-distance migrants (>5000 km: osprey and Western marsh-harrier) being faster than species that migrate shorter distances (Egyptian vulture and short-toed eagle). Our results suggest that the most important factor explaining hourly variation in flight speed is time of day, while at a daily scale, tailwind support is the most important factor explaining variation in daily distance, raising new questions about the consequences of possible future changes in worldwide wind patterns.
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spelling pubmed-33880852012-07-05 Interspecific Comparison of the Performance of Soaring Migrants in Relation to Morphology, Meteorological Conditions and Migration Strategies Mellone, Ugo Klaassen, Raymond H. G. García-Ripollés, Clara Limiñana, Ruben López-López, Pascual Pavón, Diego Strandberg, Roine Urios, Vicente Vardakis, Michalis Alerstam, Thomas PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Performance of migrating birds can be affected by a number of intrinsic and extrinsic factors like morphology, meteorological conditions and migration strategies. We compared travel speeds of four raptor species during their crossing of the Sahara desert. Focusing the analyses on this region allows us to compare different species under equivalent conditions in order to disentangle which factors affect migratory performance. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDING: We tracked raptors using GPS satellite transmitters from Sweden, Spain and Italy, and evaluated their migratory performance at both an hourly and a daily scale. Hourly data (flight speed and altitude for intervals of two hours) were analyzed in relation to time of day, species and season, and daily data (distance between roosting sites) in relation to species, season, day length and tailwind support. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Despite a clear variation in morphology, interspecific differences were generally very small, and did only arise in spring, with long-distance migrants (>5000 km: osprey and Western marsh-harrier) being faster than species that migrate shorter distances (Egyptian vulture and short-toed eagle). Our results suggest that the most important factor explaining hourly variation in flight speed is time of day, while at a daily scale, tailwind support is the most important factor explaining variation in daily distance, raising new questions about the consequences of possible future changes in worldwide wind patterns. Public Library of Science 2012-07-02 /pmc/articles/PMC3388085/ /pubmed/22768314 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0039833 Text en Mellone et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Mellone, Ugo
Klaassen, Raymond H. G.
García-Ripollés, Clara
Limiñana, Ruben
López-López, Pascual
Pavón, Diego
Strandberg, Roine
Urios, Vicente
Vardakis, Michalis
Alerstam, Thomas
Interspecific Comparison of the Performance of Soaring Migrants in Relation to Morphology, Meteorological Conditions and Migration Strategies
title Interspecific Comparison of the Performance of Soaring Migrants in Relation to Morphology, Meteorological Conditions and Migration Strategies
title_full Interspecific Comparison of the Performance of Soaring Migrants in Relation to Morphology, Meteorological Conditions and Migration Strategies
title_fullStr Interspecific Comparison of the Performance of Soaring Migrants in Relation to Morphology, Meteorological Conditions and Migration Strategies
title_full_unstemmed Interspecific Comparison of the Performance of Soaring Migrants in Relation to Morphology, Meteorological Conditions and Migration Strategies
title_short Interspecific Comparison of the Performance of Soaring Migrants in Relation to Morphology, Meteorological Conditions and Migration Strategies
title_sort interspecific comparison of the performance of soaring migrants in relation to morphology, meteorological conditions and migration strategies
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3388085/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22768314
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0039833
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