February
26, 2018, University of Toledo
The
annual long-distance migration of rare, tiny songbirds that reproduce in the
Great Lakes region and Appalachian Mountains is no longer a mystery.
By
tracking one of the smallest species ever monitored over thousands of miles
using cutting-edge technology, a team of ornithologists led by scientists at
The University of Toledo found that it is where golden-winged warblers spend
the winter in the tropics that determines if a population is declining or
stable, not factors associated with the breeding grounds thousands of miles
north in the United States and Canada.
Over
the course of the five-year study, the scientists found that different
populations of the birds,
which are about the size of a ping-pong ball and weigh less than three pennies,
do not mix between their separate northern nesting grounds occupied during the
spring and summer and the tropical sites where they spend the winter.
Mapped
using data from 76 light level geolocators recovered from the birds, each
population shows strong migratory connectivity, or geographic segregation, that
confirms that populations of the birds stay together in different locations for
the seasons throughout the year. This strong link between breeding and
non-breeding areas means that populations may be exposed to different threats
and conditions during the winter.
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