title: When Siberia came to the Netherlands: the response of continental black-tailed godwits to a rare spring weather event.
abstract: 1. Extreme weather events have the potential to alter both short- and long-term population dynamics as well as community- and ecosystem-level function. Such events are rare and stochastic, making it difficult to fully document how organisms respond to them and predict the repercussions of similar events in the future. 2. To improve our understanding of the mechanisms by which short-term events can incur long-term consequences, we documented the behavioural responses and fitness consequences for a long-distance migratory bird, the continental black-tailed godwit Limosa limosa limosa, resulting from a spring snowstorm and three-week period of record low temperatures. 3. The event caused measurable responses at three spatial scales - continental, regional and local - including migratory delays (+19 days), reverse migrations (>90 km), elevated metabolic costs (+8·8% maintenance metabolic rate) and increased foraging rates (+37%). 4. There were few long-term fitness consequences, however, and subsequent breeding seasons instead witnessed high levels of reproductive success and little evidence of carry-over effects. 5. This suggests that populations with continued access to food, behavioural flexibility and time to dissipate the costs of the event can likely withstand the consequences of an extreme weather event. For populations constrained in one of these respects, though, extreme events may entail extreme ecological consequences.
authors.affiliation: Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), University of Groningen, P.O. Box 11103, Groningen, 9700 CC, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Nathan R
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Senner
authors.affiliation: Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), University of Groningen, P.O. Box 11103, Groningen, 9700 CC, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Mo A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Verhoeven
authors.affiliation: Conservation Biology Research Group, Department of Anatomy Cell Biology and Zoology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Extremadura, Avenida de Elvas, Badajoz, 06071, Spain.
authors.forename: José M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Abad-Gómez
authors.affiliation: Conservation Biology Research Group, Department of Anatomy Cell Biology and Zoology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Extremadura, Avenida de Elvas, Badajoz, 06071, Spain.|Department of Marine Ecology, NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, P.O. Box 59, Den Burg, Texel, 1790 AB, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jorge S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Gutiérrez
authors.affiliation: Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), University of Groningen, P.O. Box 11103, Groningen, 9700 CC, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jos C E W
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Hooijmeijer
authors.affiliation: Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), University of Groningen, P.O. Box 11103, Groningen, 9700 CC, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Rosemarie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kentie
authors.affiliation: Conservation Biology Research Group, Department of Anatomy Cell Biology and Zoology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Extremadura, Avenida de Elvas, Badajoz, 06071, Spain.
authors.forename: José A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Masero
authors.affiliation: U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center, 4210 University Drive, Anchorage, AK, 99508, USA.
authors.forename: T Lee
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Tibbitts
authors.affiliation: Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), University of Groningen, P.O. Box 11103, Groningen, 9700 CC, The Netherlands.|Department of Marine Ecology, NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, P.O. Box 59, Den Burg, Texel, 1790 AB, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Theunis
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Piersma
mesh_terms: D025041:Animal Migration; D000818:Animals; D046091:Charadriiformes / Q000502:physiology*; D003080:Cold Temperature; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D012098:Reproduction; D012914:Snow
keywords: behavioural flexibility; carry-over effects; migration; resource availability; stress response