Proximate cues to phases of movement in a highly dispersive waterfowl, Anas superciliosa.
BACKGROUND
Waterfowl can exploit distant ephemeral wetlands in arid environments and provide valuable insights into the response of birds to rapid environmental change, and behavioural flexibility of avian movements. Currently much of our understanding of behavioural flexibility of avian movement comes from studies of migration in seasonally predictable biomes in the northern hemisphere. We used GPS transmitters to track 20 Pacific black duck (Anas superciliosa) in arid central Australia. We exploited La Niña conditions that brought extensive flooding, so allowing a rare opportunity to investigate how weather and other environmental factors predict initiation of long distance movement toward freshly flooded habitats. We employed behavioural change point analysis to identify three phases of movement: sedentary, exploratory and long distance oriented movement. We then used random forest models to determine the ability of meteorological and remote sensed landscape variables to predict initiation of these phases.


RESULTS
We found that initiation of exploratory movement phases is influenced by fluctuations in local weather conditions and accumulated rainfall in the landscape. Initiation of long distance movement phases was found to be highly individualistic with minor influence from local weather conditions.


CONCLUSIONS
Our study reveals how individuals utilise local conditions to respond to changes in resource distribution at broad scales. Our findings suggest that individual movement decisions of dispersive birds are informed by the integration of multiple weather cues operating at different temporal and spatial scales.
Centre for Integrative Ecology, Deakin University, Locked Bag 20000, Geelong, VIC 3220 Australia ; Zoology, School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351 Australia.
John F
0000-0003-3596-5745
JF
McEvoy
Australian Wildlife Conservancy, PO Box 6621, Halifax Street, Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia.
David A
DA
Roshier
Centre for Integrative Ecology, Deakin University, Locked Bag 20000, Geelong, VIC 3220 Australia.
Raoul F H
RF
Ribot
Centre for Integrative Ecology, Deakin University, Locked Bag 20000, Geelong, VIC 3220 Australia.
Andy T D
AT
Bennett
Arid zone; Behavioural flexibility; ENSO; Movement ecology; Nomadism; Random forest; Rapid environmental change