Abstract
Migrating animals may benefit from social or experiential learning, yet whether and how these learning processes interact or change over time to produce observed migration patterns remains unexplored. Using 16 years of satellite-tracking data from 105 reintroduced whooping cranes, we reveal an interplay between social and experiential learning in migration timing. Both processes dramatically improved individuals’ abilities to dynamically adjust their timing to track environmental conditions along the migration path. However, results revealed an ontogenetic shift in the dominant learning process, whereby subadult birds relied on social information, while mature birds primarily relied on experiential information. These results indicate that the adjustment of migration phenology in response to the environment is a learned skill that depends on both social context and individual age. Assessing how animals successfully learn to time migrations as environmental conditions change is critical for understanding intraspecific differences in migration patterns and for anticipating responses to global change.
Highlights
Migrating animals may benefit from social or experiential learning, yet whether and how these learning processes interact or change over time to produce observed migration patterns remains unexplored
Our findings reveal an ontogenetic shift in the learning of resource tracking, from a dominantly social learning process in early life to an experiential learning process as birds age
Our analyses reveal that successful resource tracking during migration, i.e., the adjustments of timing en route in response to environmental conditions, in this long-lived social species is a product of social learning early in life combined with experiential learning over individuals’ lifetimes
Summary
Migrating animals may benefit from social or experiential learning, yet whether and how these learning processes interact or change over time to produce observed migration patterns remains unexplored. The behavioral process of resource tracking allows migrating animals to enhance their energy gain by adjusting their timing during migration to keep pace with the progression of resource availability en route[3] These adjustments in response to environmental conditions can prolong access to resources and increase individual performance[4] and population persistence[5]. We took advantage of a unique longitudinal dataset on reintroduced migratory whooping cranes (Grus americana) from a long-term monitoring program on all members of the population This dataset provides migration tracks of individuals for over 15 years, and robust knowledge of each individual’s social context during migration. Subsequent migrations by juveniles, subadults (age 1), and adults (>age 1) were performed primarily in mixed-age groups of conspecifics[16]
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