Determinants of natal dispersal distances in North American birds

• Published in: Ecology and evolution Vol. 13; no. 2; pp. e9789 - n/a
• Main Authors: Chu, Jonathan J., Claramunt, Santiago
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01-02-2023; John Wiley and Sons Inc; Wiley
• Subjects: Adaptation; Bias; Birds; Breeding sites; Comparative analysis; Data recovery; Dispersal; Dispersion; ecomorphology; Efficiency; emigration; Flight; flight efficiency; Functional Ecology; Influence; Locomotion; Mobility; Movement Ecology; Museums; Phylogeny; Population genetics; Population number; Regression analysis; Regression models; wing morphology; mobility; ecomorphology; wing morphology; flight efficiency; birds; emigration
• ISSN: 2045-7758; 2045-7758
• DOI: 10.1002/ece3.9789

Natal dispersal—the movement from birth site to first breeding site—determines demographic and population genetic dynamics and has important consequences for ecological and evolutionary processes. Recent work suggested that one of the main factors determining natal dispersal distances is the cost of locomotion. We evaluated this hypothesis using band recovery data to estimate natal dispersal distances for 50 North American bird species. We then analyzed the relationships between dispersal distances and a suite of morphological and ecological predictors, including proxies for the cost of locomotion (flight efficiency), using phylogenetic regression models. We found that flight efficiency, population size, and habitat influence natal dispersal distances. We discuss how the effects of population size and habitat can also be related to mobility and locomotion. Our findings are consistent with a predominant effect of adaptations for mobility on dispersal distances.
Dispersal is fundamental to many processes in ecology and evolution. We evaluated the hypothesis that the cost of movement is most influential in dispersal process in North American birds. We found that flight efficiency, population size, and habitat influence natal dispersal distance, although the individual effects are difficult to disentangle.