Determinants of spring migration departure decision in a bat
Migratory decisions in birds are closely tied to environmental cues and fat stores, but it remains unknown if the same variables trigger bat migration. To learn more about the rare phenomenon of bat migration, we studied departure decisions of female common noctules (Nyctalus noctula) in southern Ge...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:5627173 2023-05-15T17:48:36+02:00 Determinants of spring migration departure decision in a bat Dechmann, Dina K. N. Wikelski, M. Ellis-Soto, D. Safi, K. O'Mara, M. Teague 2017-09 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5627173/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28931730 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0395 en eng The Royal Society http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5627173/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28931730 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0395 © 2017 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 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 Animal Behaviour Text 2017 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0395 2017-10-08T00:34:45Z Migratory decisions in birds are closely tied to environmental cues and fat stores, but it remains unknown if the same variables trigger bat migration. To learn more about the rare phenomenon of bat migration, we studied departure decisions of female common noctules (Nyctalus noctula) in southern Germany. We did not find the fattening period that modulates departure decisions in birds. Female noctules departed after a regular evening foraging session, uniformly heading northeast. As the day of year increased, migratory decisions were based on the interactions among wind speed, wind direction and air pressure. As the migration season progressed, bats were likely to migrate on nights with higher air pressure and faster tail winds in the direction of travel, and also show high probability of migration on low-pressure nights with slow head winds. Common noctules thus monitor complex environmental conditions to find the optimal migration night. Text Nyctalus noctula PubMed Central (PMC) Biology Letters 13 9 20170395 |
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Animal Behaviour |
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Animal Behaviour Dechmann, Dina K. N. Wikelski, M. Ellis-Soto, D. Safi, K. O'Mara, M. Teague Determinants of spring migration departure decision in a bat |
topic_facet |
Animal Behaviour |
description |
Migratory decisions in birds are closely tied to environmental cues and fat stores, but it remains unknown if the same variables trigger bat migration. To learn more about the rare phenomenon of bat migration, we studied departure decisions of female common noctules (Nyctalus noctula) in southern Germany. We did not find the fattening period that modulates departure decisions in birds. Female noctules departed after a regular evening foraging session, uniformly heading northeast. As the day of year increased, migratory decisions were based on the interactions among wind speed, wind direction and air pressure. As the migration season progressed, bats were likely to migrate on nights with higher air pressure and faster tail winds in the direction of travel, and also show high probability of migration on low-pressure nights with slow head winds. Common noctules thus monitor complex environmental conditions to find the optimal migration night. |
format |
Text |
author |
Dechmann, Dina K. N. Wikelski, M. Ellis-Soto, D. Safi, K. O'Mara, M. Teague |
author_facet |
Dechmann, Dina K. N. Wikelski, M. Ellis-Soto, D. Safi, K. O'Mara, M. Teague |
author_sort |
Dechmann, Dina K. N. |
title |
Determinants of spring migration departure decision in a bat |
title_short |
Determinants of spring migration departure decision in a bat |
title_full |
Determinants of spring migration departure decision in a bat |
title_fullStr |
Determinants of spring migration departure decision in a bat |
title_full_unstemmed |
Determinants of spring migration departure decision in a bat |
title_sort |
determinants of spring migration departure decision in a bat |
publisher |
The Royal Society |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5627173/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28931730 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0395 |
genre |
Nyctalus noctula |
genre_facet |
Nyctalus noctula |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5627173/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28931730 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0395 |
op_rights |
© 2017 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 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/rsbl.2017.0395 |
container_title |
Biology Letters |
container_volume |
13 |
container_issue |
9 |
container_start_page |
20170395 |
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1766154739726155776 |