Publications by authors named "I Maggini"
Article Synopsis
- Migration is a critical strategy for many temperate bird species, involving energy accumulation and subsequent depletion during long flights.
- Stopover sites are essential for birds to rest, replenish energy, and manage high physiological stress, with resting duration being influenced by environmental and fat reserves.
- Research on common whitethroats shows that while tucked sleeping conserves energy, these birds prioritize foraging over modifying sleep habits, indicating a focus on fuel accumulation during migration.
While immunity is frequently dampened when birds engage in strenuous migratory flights, whether and how immunity changes during the rapid accumulation of energy stores in preparation for migration remains largely unknown. Here we induced pre-migratory fattening through controlled changes of daylight in common quails (Coturnix coturnix) and regularly assessed changes in three markers of constitutive innate immunity (leukocyte coping capacity or LCC, hemagglutination and hemolysis titres) and measures of body composition (lean and fat mass). All the three markers showed similar changes over the pre-migratory fattening process.
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- Migratory species are adjusting their migration timing due to climate change, which affects food availability and fitness.
- This study focuses on the co-migration patterns of African-European migratory landbirds, highlighting that they travel in species groups with significant overlap.
- The concept of 'co-migration fidelity' is observed to be increasing, especially among long-distance migrants, indicating possible regulatory mechanisms that influence migration dynamics in response to climate conditions.
Tropical species are considered to be more threatened by climate change than those of other world regions. This increased sensitivity to warming is thought to stem from the assumptions of low physiological capacity to withstand temperature fluctuations and already living near their limits of heat tolerance under current climatic conditions. For birds, despite thorough documentation of community-level rearrangements, such as biotic attrition and elevational shifts, there is no consistent evidence of direct physiological sensitivity to warming.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLittle is known about how songbirds modulate sleep during migratory periods. Due to the alternation of nocturnal endurance flights and diurnal refueling stopovers, sleep is likely to be a major constraint for many migratory passerine species. Sleep may help to increase the endogenous antioxidant capacity that counteracts free radicals produced during endurance flight and reduces energy expenditure.
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