Sensor:
Solar Geolocator Raw

No Thumbnail Available
Name
Solar Geolocator Raw
External ID
solar-geolocator-raw
Is Location Sensor

Filters

2020 - 20245
Reset filters

Settings

search.filters.applied.f.sensorName: Solar Geolocator Raw × Start date: 2020 × End date: 2024 ×

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Data package
    Data from: Trans-equatorial migration links oceanic frontal habitats across the Pacific Ocean: year-round movements and foraging activity of a small gadfly petrel
    (2024-01-22) Clay, Thomas A.; Brooke, MdeL.
    Gadfly petrels are among the widest-ranging birds and inhabit oceanic regions beyond the legislative protection of national jurisdictions (the High Seas). Detailed information on breeding phenology, at-sea distributions, and habitat requirements is crucial for understanding threats and designing conservation measures for this highly threatened group. We tracked 10 Stejneger’s petrels Pterodroma longirostris, endemic to Isla Alejandro Selkirk, Juan Fernández Islands in the southeast Pacific Ocean, with geolocator-immersion loggers over two years to examine year-round movements, phenology, habitat use, and activity patterns. Birds conducted round-trip trans-equatorial migrations of 54,725 km to the northwest Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Japan. Across the boreal summer, birds followed the c. 1000 km northward movement of the North Pacific Transition Zone Chlorophyll Front, before their return migration which took a long detour south toward New Zealand before heading east at 40–50°S, presumably benefitting from Antarctic circumpolar winds. To our knowledge, a comparable triangular migration is unique among seabirds. During the pre-laying exodus, birds traveled southwest to the Sub-Antarctic Front, and unlike congeners, there was no evidence of sexual segregation. Foraging areas during incubation were similar to pre-laying, with trips lasting 13 d and taking birds up to 4810 km southwest of the colony. Petrels spent > 75% of their time flying during breeding and migration, yet flight activity was substantially lower during non-breeding, presumably due to flight feather molt. Birds spent 87% of their time at sea within the High Seas and their apparent preference for oceanic frontal regions demonstrates the importance of protecting these remote habitats.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Data package
    Data from: Spatiotemporally variable snow properties drive habitat use of an Arctic mesopredator
    (2023-08-16) Glass, Thomas W.; Robards, Martin D.
    Climate change is rapidly altering the composition and availability of snow, with implications for snow-affected ecological processes, including reproduction, predation, habitat selection, and migration. How snowpack changes influence these ecological processes is mediated by physical snowpack properties, such as depth, density, hardness, and strength, each of which is in turn affected by climate change. Despite this, it remains difficult to obtain meaningful snow information relevant to the ecological processes of interest, precluding a mechanistic understanding of these effects. This problem is acute for species that rely on particular attributes of the subnivean space, for example depth, thermal resistance, and structural stability, for key life-history processes like reproduction, thermoregulation, and predation avoidance. We used a spatially explicit snow evolution model to investigate how habitat selection of a species that uses the subnivean space, the wolverine, is related to snow depth, snow density, and snow melt on Arctic tundra. We modeled these snow properties at a 10 m spatial and a daily temporal resolution for 3 years, and used integrated step selection analyses of GPS collar data from 21 wolverines to determine how these snow properties influenced habitat selection and movement. We found that wolverines selected deeper, denser snow, but only when it was not undergoing melt, bolstering the evidence that these snow properties are important to species that use the Arctic snowpack for subnivean resting sites and dens. We discuss the implications of these findings in the context of climate change impacts on subnivean species.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Data package
    Data from: Study "Switzerland Biel - Long term study on migratory movement of Alpine swifts (Apus melba)"
    (2020-11-26) Meier, Christoph M.; Liechti, Felix
    For migratory birds optimal timing of the onset of reproduction is vital, especially when suitable conditions for reproduction occur only for a short while during the year. With increasing latitude the suitable period becomes shorter and we expect the organization of annual cycle to be more synchronized to the local conditions across individuals of same population. This should result in low variation of arrival and departure date in breeding sites at higher latitudes. We quantify the temporal and geographical variation in pre‐ and post‐breeding migration between individuals from four different populations of alpine swifts Tachymarptis melba along a latitudinal gradient. We tracked 215 individuals in three years with geolocators. The two western and two eastern populations showed separate migratory flyways and places of residence in Africa. Length of stay at the breeding sites was negatively correlated with latitude and differed by more than a month between populations. Duration of migration was similarly short in all populations (median 6.2 days in autumn and 8.7 days in spring). However, variation in timing of migration was unrelated to latitude and individuals everywhere arrived in the same asynchrony at the breeding site.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Data package
    Data from: White-crested Elaenias (Elaenia albiceps chilensis) breeding across Patagonia exhibit similar spatial and temporal movement patterns throughout the year
    (2024-04-02) Jara, Rocío Fernanda; Jiménez, Jaime Enrique; Ricardo, Rozzi
    For migratory birds, events happening during any period of their annual cycle can have strong carry-over effects on the subsequent periods. The strength of carry-over effects between non-breeding and breeding grounds can be shaped by the degree of migratory connectivity: whether or not individuals that breed together also migrate and/or spend the non-breeding season together. We assessed the annual cycle of the White-crested Elaenia (Elaenia albiceps chilensis), the longest-distance migrant flycatcher within South America, which breeds in Patagonia and spends the non-breeding season as far north as Amazonia. Using light-level geolocators, we tracked the annual movements of elaenias breeding on southern Patagonia and compared it with movements of elaenias breeding in northern Patagonia (1,365 km north) using Movebank Repository data. We found that elaenias breeding in southern Patagonia successively used two separate non-breeding regions while in their Brazilian non-breeding grounds, as already found for elaenias breeding in the northern Patagonia site. Elaenias breeding in both northern and southern Patagonia also showed high spread in their non-breeding grounds, high non-breeding overlap among individuals from both breeding sites, and similar migration phenology, all of which suggests weak migratory connectivity for this species. Elucidating the annual cycle of this species, with particular emphasis on females and juveniles, still requires further research across a wide expanse of South America. This information will be critical to understanding and possibly predicting this species’ response to climate change and rapid land-use changes.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Data package
    Data from: Kiawah and Seabrook islands are a critical site for the rufa Red Knot (Calidris canutus rufa)
    (2022-12-13) Pelton, Mary Margaret; Padula, Sara R.; Garcia-Walther, Julian; Andrews, Mark; Mercer, Robert; Porter, Ron; Sanders, Felicia; Thibault, Janet; Senner, Nathan; Linscott, Jennifer A.
    The rufa Red Knot Calidris canutus rufa is a migratory shorebird that performs one of the longest known migrations among birds and has experienced a population decline of over 85% in recent decades. During migration, rufa Red Knots rest and refuel at stopover sites along the Atlantic Coast of the USA, including Kiawah and Seabrook islands in South Carolina. We document the importance of Kiawah and Seabrook islands forknots during their spring migration using on-the-ground surveys between 19 February and 20 May 2021 to record the occurrence and proportion of individually marked knots, as well as geolocators deployed on knots captured in the area. Using a superpopulation model, we estimated a minimum passage population of 17,247 knots (95% CI: 13,548–22,099; ~41% of the total rufa knot population) and an average stopover duration of 47 days (95% CI: 40.1–54.8). Our geolocator results showed that knots using Kiawah and Seabrook islands can bypass Delaware Bay and fly directly to the Canadian Arctic. Finally, our geolocators, combined with resighting data from across the Atlantic Flyway, indicate that a large network of more than 70 coastal sites concentrated largely in the southeastern USA provide stopover and overwintering habitat for the knots we observed on Kiawah and Seabrook islands. These findings show that Kiawah and Seabrook islands should be recognized as critical sites in the knot network and, therefore, a conservation priority. The threats facing these sites, such as prey depletion, anthropogenic disturbance, and sea level rise, require immediate attention.