Vickers Stephen H, Meehan Timothy D, Michel Nicole L, Franco Aldina M A, Gilroy James J
School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK.
National Audubon Society, 225 Varick Street, New York, NY, 10014, USA.
Mov Ecol. 2025 Jan 13;13(1):3. doi: 10.1186/s40462-024-00527-0.
Many species are exhibiting range shifts associated with anthropogenic change. For migratory species, colonisation of new areas can require novel migratory programmes that facilitate navigation between independently-shifting seasonal ranges. Therefore, in some cases range-shifts may be limited by the capacity for novel migratory programmes to be transferred between generations, which can be genetically and socially mediated.
Here we used 50 years of North American Breeding Bird Survey and Audubon Christmas Bird Count data to test the prediction that breeding and/or non-breeding range-shifts are more prevalent among flocking migrants, which possess a capacity for rapid social transmission of novel migration routes.
Across 122 North American bird species, social migration was a significant positive predictor for the magnitude of non-breeding centre of abundance (COA) shift within our study region (conterminous United States and Southern Canada). Across a subset of 81 species where age-structured flocking was determined, migrating in mixed-age flocks produced the greatest shifts and solo migrants the lowest. Flocking was not a significant predictor of breeding COA shifts, which were better explained by absolute population trends and migration distance.
Our results suggest that social grouping may play an important role in facilitating non-breeding distributional responses to climate change in migratory species. We highlight the need to gain a better understanding of migratory programme inheritance, and how this influences spatiotemporal population dynamics under environmental change.
许多物种正在经历与人为变化相关的分布范围转移。对于迁徙物种而言，在新区域的定殖可能需要全新的迁徙模式，以促进在各自独立变化的季节性分布范围之间的导航。因此，在某些情况下，分布范围转移可能会受到新迁徙模式在代际间传递能力的限制，而这种传递可以通过遗传和社会因素来介导。
在此，我们利用50年的北美繁殖鸟类调查和奥杜邦圣诞鸟类统计数据，来检验这样一个预测，即繁殖和/或非繁殖分布范围转移在群居性迁徙鸟类中更为普遍，因为它们具有快速社会传播新迁徙路线的能力。
在122种北美鸟类中，社会迁徙是我们研究区域（美国本土和加拿大南部）内非繁殖丰度中心（COA）转移幅度的一个显著正向预测因子。在确定了年龄结构群居情况的81种鸟类子集中，在混合年龄鸟群中迁徙的鸟类转移幅度最大，单独迁徙的鸟类转移幅度最小。群居性并非繁殖COA转移的显著预测因子，繁殖COA转移能更好地由绝对种群趋势和迁徙距离来解释。
我们的结果表明，社会群体可能在促进迁徙物种对气候变化的非繁殖分布响应方面发挥重要作用。我们强调有必要更好地理解迁徙模式的遗传，以及这如何在环境变化下影响时空种群动态。
