Arctic avian predators synchronise their spring migration with the northern progression of snowmelt

• Published in: Scientific Reports
• Main Authors: Curk, Teja, Pokrovsky, Ivan, Lecomte, Nicolas, Aarvak, Tomas, Burnham, Kurt, Dietz, Andreas, Franke, Alastair, Gauthier, Gilles, Jacobsen, Karl-Otto, Kidd, Jeff, Lewis, Stephen B., Øien, Ingar J., Solheim, Roar, Wiebe, Karen, Wikelski, Martin, Therrien, Jean-François, Safi, Kamran
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Publishing Group UK 2020
• Subjects: Article; Arctic; peregrine falcon; snowy owl; Tundra
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7190624/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32350286; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-63312-0

Migratory species display a range of migration patterns between irruptive (facultative) to regular (obligate), as a response to different predictability of resources. In the Arctic, snow directly influences resource availability. The causes and consequences of different migration patterns of migratory species as a response to the snow conditions remains however unexplored. Birds migrating to the Arctic are expected to follow the spring snowmelt to optimise their arrival time and select for snow-free areas to maximise prey encounter en-route. Based on large-scale movement data, we compared the migration patterns of three top predator species of the tundra in relation to the spatio-temporal dynamics of snow cover. The snowy owl, an irruptive migrant, the rough-legged buzzard, with an intermediary migration pattern, and the peregrine falcon as a regular migrant, all followed, as expected, the spring snowmelt during their migrations. However, the owl stayed ahead, the buzzard stayed on, and the falcon stayed behind the spatio-temporal peak in snowmelt. Although none of the species avoided snow-covered areas, they presumably used snow presence as a cue to time their arrival at their breeding grounds. We show the importance of environmental cues for species with different migration patterns.