Abstract
Maintaining appropriate migratory strategies is important in conservation; however, translocations of migratory animals may alter locally evolved migration behaviours of recipient populations if these are different and heritable. We used satellite telemetry and experimental translocation to quantify differences and assess heritability in migration behaviours between three migratory Asian houbara (Chlamydotis macqueenii) breeding populations (640 km range across eastern, central and western Uzbekistan). Adults from the eastern population migrated twice as far (mean = 1184 km ± 44 s.e.) as the western population (656 km ± 183 s.e.) and showed significantly less variation in migration distance than the central population (1030 km ± 127 s.e.). The western and central populations wintered significantly further north (mean: +8.32° N ± 1.70 s.e. and +4.19° N ± 1.16 s.e., respectively) and the central population further west (−3.47° E ± 1.46 s.e.) than individuals from the eastern population. These differences could arise from a differing innate drive, or through learnt facultative responses to topography, filtered by survival. Translocated birds from the eastern population (wild-laid and captive-reared, n = 5) migrated further than adults from either western or central recipient populations, particularly in their second migration year. Translocated birds continued migrating south past suitable wintering grounds used by the recipient populations despite having to negotiate mountain obstacles. Together, this suggests a considerable conserved heritable migratory component with local adaptation at a fine geographic scale. Surviving translocated individuals returned to their release site, suggesting that continued translocations would lead to introgression of the heritable component and risk altering recipient migration patterns. Conservation biologists considering translocation interventions for migratory populations should evaluate potential genetic components of migratory behaviour.
Highlights
Maintaining successful migratory strategies in the face of environmental change is a fundamental challenge facing conservation biology [1,2]
To examine whether local migratory populations of Asian houbara retain distinct innate migration strategies, despite gene-flow and minimal population structure [34], we examined wild and translocated migration patterns in three breeding populations across 640 km (58.05°–63.90° E) of desert in Uzbekistan, a fine-grained scale relative to the full breeding span (4460 km) of migratory Central Asian populations from Iran/Kazakhstan to China (51°–106° E)
Translocated birds showed a clear drive to continue migrating south similar to their source population and migrated further than individuals from their recipient populations, which is strongly indicative of an inherited and innate migration trait
Summary
Maintaining successful migratory strategies in the face of environmental change is a fundamental challenge facing conservation biology [1,2]. Where first migration occurs in the absence of experienced individuals, migratory traits are innate [4,8] with a strong heritable component [9,10,11]. For such species, translocation for reinforcement using individuals from an allopatric source population may disrupt the recipient population’s migration strategy, potentially altering fitness [12,13,14], while translocation for reintroduction of extirpated populations may not replicate historic migration strategies [15]. When developing a translocation programme for migratory species, an experimental investigation is, required to assess whether the interplay of facultative and heritable behaviour leads translocated individuals to establish appropriate migration routes
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