Abstract
Under time‐selected migration, birds should choose a strategy for outcompeting rivals over securing access to prime resources at the final destination. Thus, migration can be viewed as a race among individuals where winners are arriving first when conditions are suitable. The sprint migration hypothesis predicts that individuals shift from maximum sustained speed to a final burst of sprint to shorten the transition from migration to breeding (Alerstam, 2006). In this study, we test the hypothesis of a final sprint migration in a long‐distance Afro‐Palearctic migrant, the collared flycatcher Ficedula albicollis, during autumn and spring, and compare migration strategies between the seasons. In both seasons, collared flycatchers evidently exhibited sprint migration by increasing their overall speed over the last leg of migration after the Sahara crossing. This phenomenon was more pronounced in spring, contributing to overall faster spring migration and possibly highlighting higher importance for early arrival at the breeding grounds. In both seasons and particularly in spring, late departing individuals flew at a faster rate, partially being able to catch up with their early departing conspecifics. Differential fueling strategies may play an important role in determining migration speed, especially during the early stages of the migration, and might explain the observed differences in migration speeds between late and early departing individuals. Our findings suggest competition for early arrival at the breeding and at the nonbreeding destinations alike. Sprint migration might be an appropriate strategy to gain advantage over conspecifics and settle in prime territories as well as to cope with the increasingly earlier springs at high latitudes.
Highlights
The ecological background for why birds migrate differs seasonally (Newton, 2008)
Because early arrival time is of high importance for reproductive success, we may expect the birds to optimize time, rather than energy during the spring migration, that is, to adopt the time-minimization strategy (Alerstam & Lindström, 1990)
Alerstam (2006) has proposed the “sprint migration” hypothesis: Migratory birds may adopt a variable strategy with optimizing energy expenditure through the early part of the journey followed by a period with increased migration speed to complete the migration
Summary
The ecological background for why birds migrate differs seasonally (Newton, 2008). In autumn, the drive for migration comes from a self-preservation viewpoint as birds try to increase their chances of survival by escaping the forthcoming unfavorable conditions at their breeding sites. Because early arrival time is of high importance for reproductive success, we may expect the birds to optimize time, rather than energy during the spring migration, that is, to adopt the time-minimization strategy (Alerstam & Lindström, 1990). If arrival time at the nonbreeding sites is of low importance, birds may rather choose to optimize their energy expenditure during the autumn migration, that is, to adopt the energy minimization strategy, and migrate at an overall slower speed as compared to spring (Alerstam & Lindström, 1990). Alerstam (2006) has proposed the “sprint migration” hypothesis: Migratory birds may adopt a variable strategy with optimizing energy expenditure through the early part of the journey (i.e., energy minimization) followed by a period with increased migration speed to complete the migration (i.e., time-minimization strategy). We predict that the arrival date will highly depend on migration speed through the last leg of the migration
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