Understanding the elements that shape the ontogeny of migration in white storks

• Applicant: Dr. Andrea Flack
• Subject Area: Sensory and Behavioural Biology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 463925853

Behavioural research aims at answering questions on the mechanisms, the adaptive significance, the ontogeny, and the evolution of a given behaviour (Tinbergen, 1963). In the past years, I have developed a deep fascination for long-distance bird migration, inspiring me to explore the unknown aspects of these remarkable journeys. My research has so far significantly contributed to understanding the adaptive value and the mechanisms of bird migration by examining flight performances, energetics, and survival of long-distance migrants, and by pioneering the study of collective or social migration. However, what is essential to gain an overall understanding of migration (including its evolution) and what is generally missing in migratory studies, are insights on the ontogeny of migration.My goal with this proposal is to understand how migration routes of white storks develop throughout their lifetime. I will study how innate and physiological features, social experiences, and learning shape flight and migratory patterns. In my project, I would like to establish the white stork as a model system for studying the ontogeny of migration as well as the mechanisms impacting collective migration. With state-of-the art tracking technology and a set of well-defined experiments, I am going to explore these four factors impacting the ontogeny of migration behaviour. First, I want to examine the physiological costs of migrating juvenile storks and determine how these costs influence (and are influenced by) the transmission of social information during migration. Second, I will explore the effect of learning on the development of migratory patterns: I will use long-term multi-year tracking data to establish how migratory and lifetime decisions are being shaped over time. In addition, release experiments will determine whether learned migratory behaviour can override cues from the social environment. Third, I will explore the innate migratory behaviour of white storks by conducting translocation experiments. Fourth, I will measure the effects of the social environment by manipulating group size during these releases to determine how it influences flight performance and inter-individual interactions. In summary, I propose setting up a research group that uses a long-distance migrant, the white stork, to explore the physiological, learned, social or innate factors that shape its migration patterns.

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups