Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TesSEH (The true cost of migration: testing the species-energy hypothesis by quantifying the energy budget of free flying avian migrants under spatially explicit environmental conditions)
Reporting period: 2020-05-01 to 2022-04-30
The annual long-distance migration of birds is a widespread phenomenon that underpins the seasonal distribution of biodiversity and ecological processes on Earth. However, knowledge of the energetic balance of animals undertaking these endurance flights and the drivers of this fascinating behavior undertaken by billions of individuals remains lacking. The TesSEH project aimed to quantify the demographic, spatial and temporal specific energetic budget of migratory songbirds by utilizing technological advances in biologging to determine fundamental physiological processes in the natural environment. By doing so, the TesSEHproject aimed to answer some of the fundamental questions in Ecology – how do patterns of large-scale seasonal movement evolve and which environmental drivers underlie this phenomenon. An understanding of the relationship between the environment and distribution of life on earth has impact on our understanding of how the planet and biodiversity may look under predicted climate and anthropogenic change, the processes that has led to the diversification on behavioral traits were recognize today. Overall, the TesSEH project delivered a robust package of novel data, developed modelling pipelines and analytical tools to finalise the goals of the fellowship and open up new avenues of research.
The TesSEH project consisted of two complimentary work packages. The first, a broad and comprehensive energetic model for a whole species with multiple migratory phenotypes, involved the roll out of a European wide biologging collaboration with state-of-the-art miniaturized tracking devices to inform a demographically specific energetic map for a migratory songbird, the European Blackbird, in order to investigate evolutionary and population level processes. The second, investigated in the highest resolution the flight energetics and biomechanics using a state-of-the-art motion capture flight hanger. For the second work package, European Blackbirds were temporarily instrumented with Heart-Rate transmitters and non-invasive markers for tracking at sub mm spatial resolution to capture the energetics of a vast array of flight and behaviors.
To date, TesSEHs clearest advancement beyond the state of the art was the unanticipated breakthrough in how to model species distributions through space and time by integrating multiple data streams from biologgers, telemetry and ringing. Moreover, results from both packages delivers insights into the energetic capacity of the study species from continental scale population processes to ultra-high resolution flight biomechanics highlighting the adaptations to efficient flight. Results of the project have already been published in the scientific literature, have been disseminated at international research conferences and attracted collaboration with the arts with the hope of enhancing the publics understanding and appreciation for natural phenomena and our collective impact on the world.