Climate alters the movement ecology of a non-migratory bird.

Abstract

Global climate change is causing increased climate extremes threatening biodiversity and altering ecosystems. Climate is comprised of many variables including air temperature, barometric pressure, solar radiation, wind, relative humidity, and precipitation that interact with each other. As movement connects various aspects of an animal's life, understanding how climate influences movement at a fine‐temporal scale will be critical to the long‐term conservation of species impacted by climate change. The sedentary nature of non‐migratory species could increase some species risk of extirpation caused by climate change. We used Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus; hereafter bobwhite) as a model to better understand the relationship between climate and the movement ecology of a non‐migratory species at a fine‐temporal scale. We collected movement data on bobwhite from across western Oklahoma during 2019–2020 and paired these data with meteorological data. We analyzed movement in three different ways (probability of movement, hourly distance moved, and sinuosity) using two calculated movement metrics: hourly movement (displacement between two consecutive fixes an hour apart) and sinuosity (a form of tortuosity that determines the amount of curvature of a random search path). We used generalized linear‐mixed models to analyze probability of movement and hourly distance moved, and used linear‐mixed models to analyze sinuosity. The interaction between air temperature and solar radiation affected probability of movement and hourly distance moved. Bobwhite movement increased as air temperature increased beyond 10°C during low solar radiation. During medium and high solar radiation, bobwhite moved farther as air temperature increased until 25–30°C when hourly distance moved plateaued. Bobwhite sinuosity increased as solar radiation increased. Our results show that specific climate variables alter the fine‐scale movement of a non‐migratory species. Understanding the link between climate and movement is important to determining how climate change may impact a species’ space use and fitness now and in the future.