Eikenaar Cas, Klinner Thomas, Szostek K Lesley, Bairlein Franz
Institute of Avian Research, , An der Vogelwarte 21, Wilhelmshaven 26386, Germany.
Biol Lett. 2014 Apr 9;10(4):20140154. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2014.0154. Print 2014.
In captivity, migratory birds show increased activity during the time that they would normally migrate. The phenology and intensity of such 'migratory restlessness' has been shown to mirror species- and population-specific migration patterns observed in the wild and has consequently been used as a proxy for the motivation to migrate. Many studies doing so, however, were aiming to explain among-individual variation in migratory behaviour or traits, and not species- or population-specific traits. These studies thus assumed that, also at the level of the individual, migratory restlessness is an accurate proxy for the motivation to migrate. We tested this assumption for the first time and found that it holds; individuals showing very little migratory restlessness remained at stopover for longer than one night, whereas most individuals showing more restlessness departed sooner. This finding validates the use of migratory restlessness as a proxy for the motivation to migrate, thereby justifying the conclusions made in a large body of research on avian migration.
在圈养环境中，候鸟在正常迁徙的时间段内表现出活动增加。这种“迁徙不安”的物候和强度已被证明反映了在野外观察到的特定物种和种群的迁徙模式，因此被用作迁徙动机的替代指标。然而，许多这样的研究旨在解释个体间迁徙行为或特征的差异，而非特定物种或种群的特征。因此，这些研究假设，即使在个体层面，迁徙不安也是迁徙动机的准确替代指标。我们首次对这一假设进行了检验，发现它是成立的；表现出很少迁徙不安的个体在中途停留的时间超过一晚，而大多数表现出更多不安的个体则更早离开。这一发现验证了将迁徙不安用作迁徙动机替代指标的做法，从而证明了在大量鸟类迁徙研究中得出的结论是合理的。
