Data from: Study "Herring Gulls (Larus Argentatus); Ronconi; Brier Island, Canada" ...

• Main Authors: Ronconi, Robert A., Shlepr, Katherine R.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Movebank Data Repository 2020
• Subjects: animal movement; animal tracking; avian migration; herring gull; Larus argentatus; migratory behavior; satellite telemetry; stopover; Arctic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.282vr7kd; https://www.datarepository.movebank.org/handle/10255/move.1086

Anderson CM, Gilchrist HG, Ronconi RA, Shlepr KR, Clark DE, Fifield DA, Robertson GJ, Mallory ML (2020) Both short and long distance migrants use energy-minimizing strategies in North American herring gulls. Movement Ecology. doi:10.1186/s40462-020-00207-9 ... : Background: Recent studies have proposed that birds migrating short distances migrate at an overall slower pace, minimizing energy expenditure, while birds migrating long distances minimize time spent on migration to cope with seasonal changes in environmental conditions. Methods: We evaluated variability in the migration strategies of Herring Gulls (Larus argentatus), a generalist species with flexible foraging and flight behaviour. We tracked one population of long distance migrants and three populations of short distance migrants, and compared the directness of their migration routes, their overall migration speed, their travel speed, and their use of stopovers. Results: Our research revealed that Herring Gulls breeding in the eastern Arctic migrate long distances to spend the winter in the Gulf of Mexico, traveling more than four times farther than gulls from Atlantic Canada during autumn migration. While all populations used indirect routes, the long distance migrants were the least direct. We found ...