Standardised empirical dispersal kernels emphasise the pervasiveness of long-distance dispersal in European birds
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Standardised empirical dispersal kernels emphasise the pervasiveness of long-distance dispersal in European birds. / Fandos, Guillermo; Talluto, Matthew; Fiedler, Wolfgang; Robinson, Robert A.; Thorup, Kasper; Zurell, Damaris.
In: Journal of Animal Ecology, Vol. 92, No. 1, 2023, p. 158-170.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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T1 - Standardised empirical dispersal kernels emphasise the pervasiveness of long-distance dispersal in European birds
AU - Fandos, Guillermo
AU - Talluto, Matthew
AU - Fiedler, Wolfgang
AU - Robinson, Robert A.
AU - Thorup, Kasper
AU - Zurell, Damaris
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Dispersal is a key life-history trait for most species and is essential to ensure connectivity and gene flow between populations and facilitate population viability in variable environments. Despite the increasing importance of range shifts due to global change, dispersal has proved difficult to quantify, limiting empirical understanding of this phenotypic trait and wider synthesis. Here, we introduce a statistical framework to estimate standardised dispersal kernels from biased data. Based on this, we compare empirical dispersal kernels for European breeding birds considering age (average dispersal; natal, before first breeding; and breeding dispersal, between subsequent breeding attempts) and sex (females and males) and test whether different dispersal properties are phylogenetically conserved. We standardised and analysed data from an extensive volunteer-based bird ring-recoveries database in Europe (EURING) by accounting for biases related to different censoring thresholds in reporting between countries and to migratory movements. Then, we fitted four widely used probability density functions in a Bayesian framework to compare and provide the best statistical descriptions of the different age and sex-specific dispersal kernels for each bird species. The dispersal movements of the 234 European bird species analysed were statistically best explained by heavy-tailed kernels, meaning that while most individuals disperse over short distances, long-distance dispersal is a prevalent phenomenon in almost all bird species. The phylogenetic signal in both median and long dispersal distances estimated from the best-fitted kernel was low (Pagel's lambda < 0.25), while it reached high values (Pagel's lambda >0.7) when comparing dispersal distance estimates for fat-tailed dispersal kernels. As expected in birds, natal dispersal was on average 5 km greater than breeding dispersal, but sex-biased dispersal was not detected. Our robust analytical framework allows sound use of widely available mark-recapture data in standardised dispersal estimates. We found strong evidence that long-distance dispersal is common among European breeding bird species and across life stages. The dispersal estimates offer a first guide to selecting appropriate dispersal kernels in range expansion studies and provide new avenues to improve our understanding of the mechanisms and rules underlying dispersal events.
AB - Dispersal is a key life-history trait for most species and is essential to ensure connectivity and gene flow between populations and facilitate population viability in variable environments. Despite the increasing importance of range shifts due to global change, dispersal has proved difficult to quantify, limiting empirical understanding of this phenotypic trait and wider synthesis. Here, we introduce a statistical framework to estimate standardised dispersal kernels from biased data. Based on this, we compare empirical dispersal kernels for European breeding birds considering age (average dispersal; natal, before first breeding; and breeding dispersal, between subsequent breeding attempts) and sex (females and males) and test whether different dispersal properties are phylogenetically conserved. We standardised and analysed data from an extensive volunteer-based bird ring-recoveries database in Europe (EURING) by accounting for biases related to different censoring thresholds in reporting between countries and to migratory movements. Then, we fitted four widely used probability density functions in a Bayesian framework to compare and provide the best statistical descriptions of the different age and sex-specific dispersal kernels for each bird species. The dispersal movements of the 234 European bird species analysed were statistically best explained by heavy-tailed kernels, meaning that while most individuals disperse over short distances, long-distance dispersal is a prevalent phenomenon in almost all bird species. The phylogenetic signal in both median and long dispersal distances estimated from the best-fitted kernel was low (Pagel's lambda < 0.25), while it reached high values (Pagel's lambda >0.7) when comparing dispersal distance estimates for fat-tailed dispersal kernels. As expected in birds, natal dispersal was on average 5 km greater than breeding dispersal, but sex-biased dispersal was not detected. Our robust analytical framework allows sound use of widely available mark-recapture data in standardised dispersal estimates. We found strong evidence that long-distance dispersal is common among European breeding bird species and across life stages. The dispersal estimates offer a first guide to selecting appropriate dispersal kernels in range expansion studies and provide new avenues to improve our understanding of the mechanisms and rules underlying dispersal events.
KW - birds
KW - dispersal distance kernel
KW - Europe
KW - gamma
KW - half-Cauchy
KW - negative exponential
KW - ring-recovery
KW - weibull
KW - NATAL DISPERSAL
KW - BREEDING DISPERSAL
KW - PATTERNS
KW - SCALE
KW - TERRESTRIAL
KW - PHILOPATRY
KW - DIVERSITY
KW - PREDICT
KW - TRAIT
U2 - 10.1111/1365-2656.13838
DO - 10.1111/1365-2656.13838
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 36398379
VL - 92
SP - 158
EP - 170
JO - Journal of Animal Ecology
JF - Journal of Animal Ecology
SN - 0021-8790
IS - 1
ER -
ID: 328800884