Migration behaviour of long- and medium-distance songbird migrants

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Heiko Schmaljohann
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 311144517

• Final Report Year: 2020

Final Report Abstract

Our results clearly demonstrated that medium- and long-distance migrants significantly differ in the departure decision-making process at a stopover. They provide important information that the innate migration program of birds facilitates a complex decision-making process and that this process differs between migrant songbirds experiencing different time constraints during migration.

Publications

• 2018 Stopover departure decisions in songbirds: do long-distance migrants depart earlier and more independently of weather conditions than medium-distance migrants? Movement Ecology 8:6
  Packmor, F., Klinner, T., Woodworth, B.K., Eikenaar, C. & Schmaljohann, H.
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40462-020-0193-1)
• 2019 The start of migration correlates with arrival timing, and the total speed of migration increases with migration distance in migratory songbirds: a cross-continental analysis. Movemen Ecology 7: 25
  Schmaljohann, H.
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40462-019-0169-1)
• 2020 Decision-making in migratory birds at stopover: an interplay of energy stores and feeding conditions. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 74: 10
  Klinner, T., Buddemeier, J., Bairlein, F. & Schmaljohann, H.
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-019-2784-7)