Hi Gordon and others,
I appreciate you sending this, even if the photo doesn't match up (I
agree that it's not a Blackcap). Please keep sending the little science
notes!
I think this story is a bit different from the news about Blackcap
migration that came out a few months ago. This one is about populations
of Blackcaps migrating shorter and shorter distances, until they might
stop migrating entirely and become resident. The story that came out
several months ago was about a split in one breeding population, where
some birds migrated to Spain in the fall, and others migrated to the
British Isles.
One of the reasons there are a lot of papers on migration that involve
Blackcaps is that Blackcaps are one of the very few species where the
evolution of migration has been studied experimentally. Peter Berthold,
one of the authors on this recent paper, has done experiments with
captive populations of Blackcaps in the lab. By selectively breeding
individuals that had strong or weak migratory tendencies, he showed that
individual variation in migratory behavior is inherited (at least
partially) - when he picked birds that migrated less and mated them,
their offspring migrated less. He also showed that migration and lack
of migration can evolve very quickly (at least in this species).
Matt Dufort
Minneapolis
Gordon wrote:
First the migration article is about blackcaps in Europe, not blackpolls. I
should have looked at the article again. (I may be thinking of blackpolls at
this time.) Second, the photo appears to be a Nashville warbler. It is not
a blackcap. Even right clicking the image for "properties" says "blackcap".
There is careless journalism and better journalism. wiredscience doesn't
not seem reliable re bird study. I think sciencenews or sciencedaily ran
this summary story several months ago re change in blackcap migration
(sorry to consume your electrons and your time).
_____
From: Gordon [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2010 8:41 PM
To: '[email protected]'
Subject: a couple articles about bird migration (blackpolls in Europe) and
pigeon navigation
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/migration-adaptation/
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/57997/title/Pigeons_usually_let_b
est_navigator_take_the_lead
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