Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PLASTMIG (Escape from upheavals: evolutionary potential of migratory plasticity facing climate changes)
Reporting period: 2023-09-01 to 2025-08-31
Critical ambitions in evolutionary ecology are to understand how wild species will respond to climatic and environmental upheavals caused by anthropogenic impacts. Populations are postulated to respond to changing environments through phenotypic plasticity or micro-evolution in situ, or by moving elsewhere. Yet, the ways in which these responses could interact, potentially generating rapid micro-evolution of plasticity in movements, have scarcely been considered. Hence, full responses of mobile populations to rapid environmental changes cannot yet be predicted, impeding population management. In PLASTMIG I will break new ground in the nascent field of Evolutionary Movement Ecology by providing first estimates of: 1) Environmentally-induced plasticity in seasonal migration, thereby bringing new insight on environmental sensitivity of movement underlying population dynamics and distributions. 2) Quantitative genetic variation underlying such plasticity, hence providing new understanding of the potential for rapid microevolution of environmentally-induced movements. I will achieve these ambitious objectives by extending and applying advanced quantitative genetic statistical analyses to an exceptional multi-year dataset on free-living European shags. Available data comprise year-round field observations and pedigrees for numerous migrant and resident individuals experiencing varying environments, allowing quantification of all key effects. I will work in a leading international Centre of Excellence, ensuring outstanding scientific and career developments. PLASTMIG will thereby achieve the threefold challenge to have important scientific impact by providing new conceptual and methodological advances linking evolutionary and movement ecology; crucial societal impacts by laying key foundations for innovative conservation strategies for migrant species; and personal impacts through exceptional career training making me a leading international researcher.
I worked on the analyses of the first part of the project (work package 1).
More precisely, I assembled an environmental data set including (i) meteorological information, (ii) shag population density, (iii) North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), fish prey biomass, and (iv) sea state for the area of the Isle of May (Scotland, UK).
With this environmental information, I also built several covariates, notably aiming to measure the storm intensity, the average weather.
I then used the following covariates in statistical models: the storm intensity, the average weather, the shag population density, the NAO and the fish prey biomass.
I developed capture multistate capture recapture threshold trait model to explore the links between the environmental covariates listed above and the migration or residence strategy of shags.
I ran about one hundred statistical models estimate these links.
More precisely, I assembled an environmental data set including (i) meteorological information, (ii) shag population density, (iii) North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), fish prey biomass, and (iv) sea state for the area of the Isle of May (Scotland, UK).
With this environmental information, I also built several covariates, notably aiming to measure the storm intensity, the average weather.
I then used the following covariates in statistical models: the storm intensity, the average weather, the shag population density, the NAO and the fish prey biomass.
I developed capture multistate capture recapture threshold trait model to explore the links between the environmental covariates listed above and the migration or residence strategy of shags.
I ran about one hundred statistical models estimate these links.
By considering both yearly environmental drivers and drivers that change through time within the seasons, we decomposed the complex multidimensional environment that shags may use to modulate their migration versus residence strategy. I found interesting effect of the environmental: (i) higher liability to migrate right after fledgling (earlier in the season), (ii) higher liability to migrate when higher population density, especially right after fledgling (our density estimation maybe less relevant later in the season), (iii) lower liability to migrate with abundant nutritive resources, (iv) higher liability to migrate with negative NAO, which is associated with cold and wet climate in Scotland (but variation across the occasions), (v) lower liability to migrate with more summer-like (gentle) climate (but variation across the occasions), (vi)variation of the liability to migrate with storm intensity across the seasons, and limitation in migration during very strong storms. We also detected two main plastic period: mid-august to mid-september and October. We can summarized these results as higher probability to migrate with sub-standard environments, but restrained migration during extreme climatic events. Hence, migration versus residence plasticity may help shags to leave poor environments, but might be ineffective to escape from upheavals.