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Many routes lead to Rome : potential causes for the multi-route migration system of Red Knots, Calidris canutus islandica

Bauer, Silke, Ens, Bruno J. and Klaassen, Marcel 2010, Many routes lead to Rome : potential causes for the multi-route migration system of Red Knots, Calidris canutus islandica, Ecology, vol. 91, no. 6, pp. 1822-1831.

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Title Many routes lead to Rome : potential causes for the multi-route migration system of Red Knots, Calidris canutus islandica
Formatted title Many routes lead to Rome : potential causes for the multi-route migration system of Red Knots, Calidris canutus islandica
Author(s) Bauer, Silke
Ens, Bruno J.
Klaassen, Marcel
Journal name Ecology
Volume number 91
Issue number 6
Start page 1822
End page 1831
Publisher Ecological Society of America
Place of publication Ithaca, N.Y.
Publication date 2010-06
ISSN 0012-9658
1939-9170
Keyword(s) Calidris canutus islandica
food intake rate
Icelandic Red Knot
migratory connectivity
optimal migration
predation risk
shorebirds
stochastic dynamic programming model
Summary Migrants, such as birds or representatives of other taxa, usually make use of several stopover sites to cover the distance between their site of origin and destination. Potentially, multiple routes exist, but often little is known about the causes and consequences of alternative migration routes. Apart from their geographical distribution, the suitability of potential sites might play an important role in the animals’ decisions for a particular itinerary. We used an optimal-migration model to test three nonmutually exclusive hypotheses leading to variations in the spring migration routes of a subspecies of Red Knot, Calidris canutus islandica, which migrates from wintering grounds in Western Europe to breeding grounds in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic: the breeding location hypothesis, the energy budget hypothesis, and the predation risk hypothesis. Varying only breeding location, the model predicted that birds breeding in the Canadian Arctic and on West Greenland stop over on Iceland, whereas birds breeding in East and Northeast Greenland migrate via northern Norway, a prediction that is supported by empirical findings. Energy budgets on stopover sites had a strong influence on the choice of route and staging times. Varying foraging-intensity and mass-dependent predation risk prompted the birds to use less risky sites, if possible. The effect of simultaneous changes in the energy budget and predation risk strongly depended on the site where these occurred. Our findings provide potential explanations for the observations that C. canutus islandica uses a diverse array of migration routes. Scrutinizing the three alternative driving forces for the choice of migratory routes awaits further, specific data collection in rapidly developing fields of research (e.g., predation risk assessment, GPS tracking). Generally, the type of modeling presented here may not only highlight alternative explanations, but also direct follow-up empirical research.
Language eng
Field of Research 060201 Behavioural Ecology
Socio Economic Objective 970106 Expanding Knowledge in the Biological Sciences
HERDC Research category C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal
HERDC collection year 2010
Copyright notice ©2010, by the Ecological Society of America
Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30034456

Document type: Journal Article
Collection: School of Life and Environmental Sciences
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Created: Mon, 02 May 2011, 15:40:04 EST by Teresa Treffry