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The importance of landscape context for songbirds on migration: body mass gain is related to habitat cover

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Abstract

Landscape context influences many aspects of songbird ecology during the breeding season. The importance of landscape context at stopover sites for migrating songbirds, however, has received less attention. In particular, landscape context may affect the availability and quality of food for refueling during stopovers, which is critical for successful migration. We evaluated the influence of woody habitat cover in the surroundings of stopover sites at several spatial extents on the hourly changes of body mass in two species of European-African forest-dwelling songbird migrants (Willow Warbler, Phylloscopus trochilus, and the Eurasian Redstart, Phoenicurus phoenicurus). Data were sampled by standardized methods from a network of ringing stations throughout Europe during the falls of 1994–1996. In both species, hourly body mass gain calculated for first captures increased with woody habitat cover. We found a similar logarithmic relationship for both species, although for Willow Warblers mass gain was more strongly related to the habitat cover within 5 km, in contrast to 3 km for Redstarts. For Willow Warblers, where sufficient data are available for each year, the relationship is consistent over the years. The shape of the relationship suggests existence of a threshold of landscape suitability for refueling at stopover sites: in sites with less than 10% of woody habitat cover, birds tend to lose body mass or to gain mass at a lower rate.

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Acknowledgements

Legions of professional ornithologists, students and amateur volunteers took part in collecting and reporting trapping data. We are sincerely grateful to all of them, and ask them to accept our apologies that we cannot mention them all by name. Our colleagues from the Biological Station Rybachy and Institute for Avian Research gave invaluable assistance to this study with fruitful discussion and comments. Nikita Chernetsov, Michael Schaub, John Walder, Timothy Coppack, Anders Olson, Martin Griffiths, Kevin Winker and one anonymous referee helped significantly in the improvement of the early drafts of the manuscript. This study was supported by European Science Foundation within the Scientific Programme BIRD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Avian Research ‘Vogelwarte Helgoland’, An der Vogelwarte 21, Wilhelmshaven, 26386, Germany

    Pavel Ktitorov & Franz Bairlein

  2. Biological Station Rybachy, Zoological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, Rybachy, 238535, Kaliningrad Region, Russia

    Pavel Ktitorov

  3. Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, 53706, USA

    Maxim Dubinin

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  1. Pavel Ktitorov
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  2. Franz Bairlein
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Correspondence to Pavel Ktitorov.

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Ktitorov, P., Bairlein, F. & Dubinin, M. The importance of landscape context for songbirds on migration: body mass gain is related to habitat cover. Landscape Ecol 23, 169–179 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-007-9177-4

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