Unexpected migration patterns in a high-latitude breeding songbird: evidence from multi-sensor geolocators and isotopes
Stephanie J. Szarmach, Johanna K. Beam, Mads Moore, Benjamin M. Van Doren, Alan Brelsford, David P. L. Toews · 2025
Read Unexpected migration patterns in a high-latitude breeding songbird: evidence from multi-sensor geolocators and isotopes by Stephanie J. Szarmach, Johanna K. Beam, Mads Moore, Benjamin M. Van Doren, Alan Brelsford, David P. L. Toews (2025) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-12829184.txt.
Description
Stephanie Szarmach and co-authors track migration in Alaskan myrtle warblers in a 2025 study. Earlier hints suggested these high-latitude birds fly a short route to the Pacific Coast for winter, rather than to the Gulf Coast area used by most of their kind. The team tested two ideas: that birds pick the shortest route, or that history locks in a longer one.
They fitted six Alaskan birds with light and pressure loggers and used feather isotopes for 167 birds from Alaska and western Canada. Every tracked bird, and most isotope samples, pointed to wintering in the southeastern United States, not the Pacific Coast. Only about five percent may have used the coast. Pressure data also sharpened the tracks. History seems to outweigh distance here.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Stephanie J. Szarmach, Johanna K. Beam, Mads Moore, Benjamin M. Van Doren, Alan Brelsford, David P. L. Toews |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 51 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |