Recent phenological shifts of migratory birds at a Mediterranean spring stopover site: Species wintering in the Sahel advance passage more than tropical winterers

Ivan Maggini, Massimiliano Cardinale, Jonas Hentati Sundberg, Fernando Spina and Leonida Fusani

PLOS ONE, 2020, vol. 15, issue 9, 1-15

Abstract: Spring migration phenology is shifting towards earlier dates as a response to climate change in many bird species. However, the patterns of change might not be the same for all species, populations, sex and age classes. In particular, patterns of change could differ between species with different ecology. We analyzed 18 years of standardized bird capture data at a spring stopover site on the island of Ponza, Italy, to determine species-specific rates of phenological change for 30 species following the crossing of the Mediterranean Sea. The advancement of spring passage was more pronounced in species wintering in Northern Africa (i.e. short-distance migrants) and in the Sahel zone. Only males from species wintering further South in the forests of central Africa advanced their passage, with no effect on the overall peak date of passage of the species. The migration window on Ponza broadened in many species, suggesting that early migrants within a species are advancing their migration more than late migrants. These data suggest that the cues available to the birds to adjust departure might be changing at different rates depending on wintering location and habitat, or that early migrants of different species might be responding differently to changing conditions along the route. However, more data on departure time from the wintering areas are required to understand the mechanisms underlying such phenological changes.

Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239489 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 39489&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0239489

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0239489

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().