Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2023
Höfundar / Authors: Snæþór Aðalsteinsson (1,2), Ib Krag Petersen (1), Anthony David Fox (1)
Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: 1. Aarhus University, Department of Ecoscience, 2. Náttúrustofa Norðausturlands (Northeast Iceland Nature Research Centre)
Kynnir / Presenter: Snæþór Aðalsteinsson
Earlier spring arrival of migratory birds to breeding sites often brings enhanced reproductive success, but can come with fitness costs (e.g. mortality), implying only high-quality individuals can meet demands of early arrival. In populations distributed over large geographical ranges in winter, individuals often experience differing winter site quality and migration distance, differences potentially carrying over into the subsequent breeding season through effects on individual body condition, arrival time and/or breeding success. The Common Scoter (Melanitta nigra) has such an extensive winter distribution spanning a wide climatic gradient. Using light-level geolocator data from 30 female Common Scoters marked at their NE Iceland breeding site, we explored the extent to which spring migration strategy, arrival times (to Iceland and breeding site), timing of breeding, clutch size and nesting success were related to minimum migration distances from various wintering areas to the breeding site in spring. Since 18 out of 30 females produced multiple years of data (55 out of 67 observations), we further tested the degree to which individuals learned from previous experience and adjusted their strategy by arriving and breeding earlier with increasing age.