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Research article2024Peer reviewedOpen access

Migratory birds modulate niche tradeoffs in rhythm with seasons and life history

Yanco, Scott W.; Oliver, Ruth Y.; Iannarilli, Fabiola; Carlson, Ben S.; Heine, Georg; Mueller, Uschi; Richter, Nina; Vorneweg, Bernd; Andryushchenko, Yuriy; Batbayar, Nyambayar; Dagys, Mindaugas; Desholm, Mark; Galtbalt, Batbayar; Gavrilov, Andrey E.; Goroshko, Oleg A.; Ilyashenko, Elena I.; Ilyashenko, Valentin Yu; Mansson, Johan; Mudrik, Elena A.; Natsagdorj, Tseveenmyadag;
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Abstract

Movement is a key means by which animals cope with variable environments. As they move, animals construct individual niches composed of the environmental conditions they experience. Niche axes may vary over time and covary with one another as animals make tradeoffs between competing needs. Seasonal migration is expected to produce substantial niche variation as animals move to keep pace with major life history phases and fluctuations in environmental conditions. Here, we apply a time-ordered principal component analysis to examine dynamic niche variance and covariance across the annual cycle for four species of migratory crane: common crane (Grus grus, n = 20), demoiselle crane (Anthropoides virgo, n = 66), black-necked crane (Grus nigricollis, n = 9), and white-naped crane (Grus vipio, n = 9). We consider four key niche components known to be important to aspects of crane natural history: enhanced vegetation index (resources availability), temperature (thermoregulation), crop proportion (preferred foraging habitat), and proximity to water (predator avoidance). All species showed a primary seasonal niche “rhythm” that dominated variance in niche components across the annual cycle. Secondary rhythms were linked to major species-specific life history phases (migration, breeding, and nonbreeding) as well as seasonal environmental patterns. Furthermore, we found that cranes’ experiences of the environment emerge from time-dynamic tradeoffs among niche components. We suggest that our approach to estimating the environmental niche as a multidimensional and time-dynamical system of tradeoffs improves mechanistic understanding of organism–environment interactions.

Keywords

migration; ecological niche; animal movement; life history

Published in

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
2024, volume: 121, number: 41, article number: e2316827121

SLU Authors

Associated SLU-program

Wildlife Damage Centre
SLU Plant Protection Network

Global goals (SDG)

SDG15 Life on land

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology
Zoology

Publication identifier

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2316827121

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/133059