Data from: Early life and acquired experiences interact in shaping migratory and flight behaviors

Efrat R, Hatzofe O, Mueller T, Sapir N, Berger-Tal O. 2023. Data from: Early life and acquired experiences interact in shaping migratory and flight behaviors. Movebank Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.5441/001/1.298

Abstract

Two types of experience affect animals' behavioral proficiencies and accordingly their fitness: early-life experience–an animal’s environment during its early development, and acquired experience–the repeated practice of a specific task. Yet, how these two experience types and their interactions affect different proficiencies is still an open question. Here, we study the interactions between these two types of experience during migration, a critical and challenging period. We do so by comparing migratory proficiencies between birds with different early-life experiences, and explain these differences by testing fine-scale flight mechanisms. We used data collected by GPS transmitters during autumn migrations of 65 individuals to study the flight proficiencies of two groups of Egyptian vultures (Neophron percnopterus), a long-distance, soaring raptor. The two groups differed greatly in their early-life experience, one group being captive-bred and the other wild-hatched. Both groups improved their migratory performance with acquired experience, exhibiting shorter migration times, longer daily progress, and improved flight skills, specifically more efficient soaring-gliding behavior. The observed improvements were mostly apparent for captive-bred vultures which were the least efficient during their first migration but were able to catch up in their migratory performance already in the second migration. Thus, we show how the strong negative effects of early-life experience were offset by acquired experience. Our findings uncover how the interaction between early-life and acquired experiences may shape animals' proficiencies and shed new light on the ontogeny of animal migration, suggesting possible effects of sensitive periods of learning on the acquisition of migratory skills.

Keywords

Neophron percnopterus,accelerometer,animal movement,animal tracking,bio-logging,captive breeding,Egyptian vulture,ontogeny,raptors

Taxa

Taxon

Neophron percnopterus

Egyptian Vulture

Sensors

Sensor

GPS

Sensor

Acceleration

DOIs of related Publications

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.11.012

URI

https://datarepository.movebank.org/handle/10255/move.1668

BibTex

@misc{001/1_298,
  title = {Data from: Early life and acquired experiences interact in shaping migratory and flight behaviors},
  author = {Efrat, R and Hatzofe, O and Mueller, T and Sapir, N and Berger-Tal, O},
  year = {2023},
  URL = {http://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.298},
  doi = {doi:10.5441/001/1.298},
  publisher = {Movebank data repository}
}

RIS

TY  - DATA
ID  - doi:10.5441/001/1.298
T1  - Data from: Early life and acquired experiences interact in shaping migratory and flight behaviors
AU  - Efrat, Ron
AU  - Hatzofe, Ohad
AU  - Mueller, Thomas
AU  - Sapir, Nir
AU  - Berger-Tal, Oded
Y1  - 2023/11/21
KW  - Neophron percnopterus
KW  - accelerometer
KW  - animal movement
KW  - animal tracking
KW  - bio-logging
KW  - captive breeding
KW  - Egyptian vulture
KW  - ontogeny
KW  - raptors
KW  - Neophron percnopterus
PB  - Movebank data repository
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.298
DO  - doi:10.5441/001/1.298
ER  -

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