Phenotype-limited distributions: short-billed birds move away during times that prey bury deeply
In our seasonal world, animals face a variety of environmental conditions in the course of the year. To cope with such seasonality, animals may be phenotypically flexible, but some phenotypic traits are fixed. If fixed phenotypic traits are functionally linked to resource use, then animals should re...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4632549 2023-05-15T18:40:28+02:00 Phenotype-limited distributions: short-billed birds move away during times that prey bury deeply Duijns, Sjoerd van Gils, Jan A. Smart, Jennifer Piersma, Theunis 2015-06-17 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4632549/ https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150073 en eng The Royal Society Publishing http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4632549/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150073 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © 2015 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Biology (Whole Organism) Text 2015 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150073 2015-11-08T01:46:50Z In our seasonal world, animals face a variety of environmental conditions in the course of the year. To cope with such seasonality, animals may be phenotypically flexible, but some phenotypic traits are fixed. If fixed phenotypic traits are functionally linked to resource use, then animals should redistribute in response to seasonally changing resources, leading to a ‘phenotype-limited’ distribution. Here, we examine this possibility for a shorebird, the bar-tailed godwit (Limosa lapponica; a long-billed and sexually dimorphic shorebird), that has to reach buried prey with a probing bill of fixed length. The main prey of female bar-tailed godwits is buried deeper in winter than in summer. Using sightings of individually marked females, we found that in winter only longer-billed individuals remained in the Dutch Wadden Sea, while the shorter-billed individuals moved away to an estuary with a more benign climate such as the Wash. Although longer-billed individuals have the widest range of options in winter and could therefore be selected for, counterselection may occur during the breeding season on the tundra, where surface-living prey may be captured more easily with shorter bills. Phenotype-limited distributions could be a widespread phenomenon and, when associated with assortative migration and mating, it may act as a precursor of phenotypic evolution. Text Tundra PubMed Central (PMC) Royal Society Open Science 2 6 150073 |
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ftpubmed |
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English |
topic |
Biology (Whole Organism) |
spellingShingle |
Biology (Whole Organism) Duijns, Sjoerd van Gils, Jan A. Smart, Jennifer Piersma, Theunis Phenotype-limited distributions: short-billed birds move away during times that prey bury deeply |
topic_facet |
Biology (Whole Organism) |
description |
In our seasonal world, animals face a variety of environmental conditions in the course of the year. To cope with such seasonality, animals may be phenotypically flexible, but some phenotypic traits are fixed. If fixed phenotypic traits are functionally linked to resource use, then animals should redistribute in response to seasonally changing resources, leading to a ‘phenotype-limited’ distribution. Here, we examine this possibility for a shorebird, the bar-tailed godwit (Limosa lapponica; a long-billed and sexually dimorphic shorebird), that has to reach buried prey with a probing bill of fixed length. The main prey of female bar-tailed godwits is buried deeper in winter than in summer. Using sightings of individually marked females, we found that in winter only longer-billed individuals remained in the Dutch Wadden Sea, while the shorter-billed individuals moved away to an estuary with a more benign climate such as the Wash. Although longer-billed individuals have the widest range of options in winter and could therefore be selected for, counterselection may occur during the breeding season on the tundra, where surface-living prey may be captured more easily with shorter bills. Phenotype-limited distributions could be a widespread phenomenon and, when associated with assortative migration and mating, it may act as a precursor of phenotypic evolution. |
format |
Text |
author |
Duijns, Sjoerd van Gils, Jan A. Smart, Jennifer Piersma, Theunis |
author_facet |
Duijns, Sjoerd van Gils, Jan A. Smart, Jennifer Piersma, Theunis |
author_sort |
Duijns, Sjoerd |
title |
Phenotype-limited distributions: short-billed birds move away during times that prey bury deeply |
title_short |
Phenotype-limited distributions: short-billed birds move away during times that prey bury deeply |
title_full |
Phenotype-limited distributions: short-billed birds move away during times that prey bury deeply |
title_fullStr |
Phenotype-limited distributions: short-billed birds move away during times that prey bury deeply |
title_full_unstemmed |
Phenotype-limited distributions: short-billed birds move away during times that prey bury deeply |
title_sort |
phenotype-limited distributions: short-billed birds move away during times that prey bury deeply |
publisher |
The Royal Society Publishing |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4632549/ https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150073 |
genre |
Tundra |
genre_facet |
Tundra |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4632549/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150073 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © 2015 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150073 |
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Royal Society Open Science |
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2 |
container_issue |
6 |
container_start_page |
150073 |
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