Automated radio tracking system for avian studies

鸟类是高度移动的动物，但也许令人惊讶的是，在同一物种的不同个体的移动的程度上，也就是说，在它们生命周期的不同阶段，它们的移动距离有很大的差异。例如，在繁殖期间，鸟类在喂养雏鸟时被绑在巢的位置。然而，有些鸟每天只飞行几百米（相当于步行到街角的商店），而另一些鸟每天飞行20公里（几乎是半个马拉松），就能为它们的雏鸟找到食物。在光谱的另一端，候鸟将在北极的繁殖地和更南部的越冬地之间旅行数千公里。但在这里，一些个体经常比同一物种的其他个体旅行数百公里。我们仍然只有一个非常初步的了解这种个体差异的后果在“流动性”-有成本旅行更远的距离在繁殖，迁移或越冬的理由，或者这实际上带来了好处的个人-但由于最近的技术进步，如自动无线电跟踪系统，我们现在有更大的能力来跟踪大量的个体并回答这些问题。在这里，我们要求资助一个自动无线电跟踪系统，该系统具有数字编码无线电发射器，能够一次跟踪数百只鸟类，并记录超过25万条记录。这将使我们能够获得有关鸟类移动模式变化的详细信息，以及这种变化在三个不同系统中的后果：a）在欧洲椋鸟的父母照料期间（Sturnus vulgaris），一种作为农业害虫日益受到关注的物种，B）太平洋Dunlins（Calidris alpina），一种日益受到保护关注的物种，在从阿拉斯加向南迁徙到不列颠哥伦比亚省的中途停留地期间，以及c）黄莺（Setophaga petechia），一种新热带移民，在墨西哥的自然和改造栖息地越冬。

Birds are highly mobile animals but, perhaps surprisingly, there is a large amount of variation in just how mobile different individuals of the same species are, i.e. how far they travel, during different stages of their life cycles. For example, during breeding birds are tied to a nest location while they feed their chicks. However, some birds manage to find food for their chicks by travelling and foraging over only a few hundred meters each day (equivalent to a walk to the corner store) whereas others fly up to 20 km a day (almost a half marathon). At the other end of the spectrum, migratory birds will travel several thousand kilometers between their breeding grounds in the Arctic and wintering grounds further south. But here, some individuals often travel many hundreds of kilometers further than other individuals of the same species. We still have only a very rudimentary understanding of the consequences of this individual variation in 'mobility' - are there costs to traveling greater distances during breeding, migration or on the wintering grounds, or does this actually bring benefits to individuals - but due to recent technological advances, such as automated radio tracking systems, we now have a much greater ability to follow large numbers of individuals and answer these questions. Here we are requesting funding for an automated radio tracking system with digitally-coded radio transmitters capable of following several hundred individual birds at one time and logging over 250,000 records. This will allow us to obtain detailed information on variation in mobility patterns of birds, and the consequences of this variation, in three different systems: a) during parental care in European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) in agricultural habitats, a species of increasing concern as an agricultural pest, b) in Pacific Dunlins (Calidris alpina), a species of increasing conservation concern, during southward migration from Alaska to stop-over sites in British Columbia, and c) in yellow warblers (Setophaga petechia), a neotropical migrant that overwinters in natural and modified habitat in Mexico.