The interplay of wind and uplift facilitates over-water flight in facultative soaring birds ...

• Main Authors: Nourani, Elham, Bohrer, Gil, Becciu, Paolo, Bierregaard, Richard O, Duriez, Olivier, Figuerola, Jordi, Gangoso, Laura, Giokas, Sinos, Higuchi, Hiroyoshi, Kassara, Christina, Kulikova, Olga, Lecomte, Nicolas, Monti, Flavio, Pokrovsky, Ivan, Sforzi, Andrea, Therrien, Jean-François, Tsiopelas, Nikos, Vansteelant, Wouter MG, Viana, Duarte S, Yamaguchi, Noriyuki M, Wikelski, Martin, Safi, Kamran
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2021
• Subjects: Pernis ptilorhynchus; Butastur indicus; Pandion haliaetus; Falco peregrinus; Falco eleonorae; step selection functions; generalized additive mixed effect models
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.r4xgxd2ct; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.r4xgxd2ct

Flying over the open sea is energetically costly for terrestrial birds. Despite this, over-water journeys of many birds, sometimes hundreds of kilometers long, are uncovered by bio-logging technology. To understand how these birds afford their flights over the open sea, we investigated the role of atmospheric conditions, specifically wind and uplift, in subsidizing over-water flight at the global scale. We first established that ∆T, the temperature difference between sea surface and air, is a meaningful proxy for uplift over water. Using this proxy, we showed that the spatio-temporal patterns of sea-crossing in terrestrial migratory birds is associated with favorable uplift conditions. We then analyzed route selection over the open sea for five facultative soaring species, representing all major migratory flyways. The birds maximized wind support when selecting their sea-crossing routes and selected higher uplift when suitable wind support was available. They also preferred routes with low long-term ... : The R scripts needed to reproduce the results are included in the repository: https://github.com/mahle68/global_seascape_public ...