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A tale of two seasons: The link between seasonal migration and climatic niches in passerine birds
The question of whether migratory birds track a specific climatic niche by seasonal movements has important implications for understanding the evolution of migration, the factors affecting species' distributions, and the responses of migrants to climate change. Despite much research, previous s...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
John Wiley and Sons Inc.
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7663971/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33209264 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6729 |
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author | Eyres, Alison Böhning‐Gaese, Katrin Orme, C. David L. Rahbek, Carsten Fritz, Susanne A. |
author_facet | Eyres, Alison Böhning‐Gaese, Katrin Orme, C. David L. Rahbek, Carsten Fritz, Susanne A. |
author_sort | Eyres, Alison |
collection | PubMed |
description | The question of whether migratory birds track a specific climatic niche by seasonal movements has important implications for understanding the evolution of migration, the factors affecting species' distributions, and the responses of migrants to climate change. Despite much research, previous studies of bird migration have produced mixed results. However, whether migrants track climate is only one half of the question, the other being why residents remain in the same geographic range year‐round. We provide a literature overview and test the hypothesis of seasonal niche tracking by evaluating seasonal climatic niche overlap across 437 migratory and resident species from eight clades of passerine birds. Seasonal climatic niches were based on a new global dataset of breeding and nonbreeding ranges. Overlap between climatic niches was quantified using ordination methods. We compared niche overlap of migratory species to two null expectations, (a) a scenario in which they do not migrate and (b) in comparison with the overlap experienced by closely related resident species, while controlling for breeding location and range size. Partly in accordance with the hypothesis of niche tracking, we found that the overlap of breeding versus nonbreeding climatic conditions in migratory species was greater than the overlap they would experience if they did not migrate. However, this was only true for migrants breeding outside the tropics and only relative to the overlap species would experience if they stayed in the breeding range year‐round. In contrast to the hypothesis of niche tracking, migratory species experienced lower seasonal climatic niche overlap than resident species, with significant differences between tropical and nontropical species. Our study suggests that in seasonal nontropical environments migration away from the breeding range may serve to avoid seasonally harsh climate; however, different factors may drive seasonal movements in the climatically more stable tropical regions. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7663971 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-76639712020-11-17 A tale of two seasons: The link between seasonal migration and climatic niches in passerine birds Eyres, Alison Böhning‐Gaese, Katrin Orme, C. David L. Rahbek, Carsten Fritz, Susanne A. Ecol Evol Original Research The question of whether migratory birds track a specific climatic niche by seasonal movements has important implications for understanding the evolution of migration, the factors affecting species' distributions, and the responses of migrants to climate change. Despite much research, previous studies of bird migration have produced mixed results. However, whether migrants track climate is only one half of the question, the other being why residents remain in the same geographic range year‐round. We provide a literature overview and test the hypothesis of seasonal niche tracking by evaluating seasonal climatic niche overlap across 437 migratory and resident species from eight clades of passerine birds. Seasonal climatic niches were based on a new global dataset of breeding and nonbreeding ranges. Overlap between climatic niches was quantified using ordination methods. We compared niche overlap of migratory species to two null expectations, (a) a scenario in which they do not migrate and (b) in comparison with the overlap experienced by closely related resident species, while controlling for breeding location and range size. Partly in accordance with the hypothesis of niche tracking, we found that the overlap of breeding versus nonbreeding climatic conditions in migratory species was greater than the overlap they would experience if they did not migrate. However, this was only true for migrants breeding outside the tropics and only relative to the overlap species would experience if they stayed in the breeding range year‐round. In contrast to the hypothesis of niche tracking, migratory species experienced lower seasonal climatic niche overlap than resident species, with significant differences between tropical and nontropical species. Our study suggests that in seasonal nontropical environments migration away from the breeding range may serve to avoid seasonally harsh climate; however, different factors may drive seasonal movements in the climatically more stable tropical regions. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2020-10-20 /pmc/articles/PMC7663971/ /pubmed/33209264 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6729 Text en © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Original Research Eyres, Alison Böhning‐Gaese, Katrin Orme, C. David L. Rahbek, Carsten Fritz, Susanne A. A tale of two seasons: The link between seasonal migration and climatic niches in passerine birds |
title | A tale of two seasons: The link between seasonal migration and climatic niches in passerine birds |
title_full | A tale of two seasons: The link between seasonal migration and climatic niches in passerine birds |
title_fullStr | A tale of two seasons: The link between seasonal migration and climatic niches in passerine birds |
title_full_unstemmed | A tale of two seasons: The link between seasonal migration and climatic niches in passerine birds |
title_short | A tale of two seasons: The link between seasonal migration and climatic niches in passerine birds |
title_sort | tale of two seasons: the link between seasonal migration and climatic niches in passerine birds |
topic | Original Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7663971/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33209264 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6729 |
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