North American avian species that migrate in flocks show greater long-term non-breeding range shift rates.

Background: Many species are exhibiting range shifts associated with anthropogenic change. For migratory species, colonisation of new areas can require novel migratory programmes that facilitate navigation between independently-shifting seasonal ranges. Therefore, in some cases range-shifts may be limited by the capacity for novel migratory programmes to be transferred between generations, which can be genetically and socially mediated.

Accounting for imperfect detection when estimating species-area relationships and beta-diversity.

Ecologists have historically quantified fundamental biodiversity patterns, including species-area relationships (SARs) and beta diversity, using observed species counts. However, imperfect detection may often bias derived community metrics and subsequent community models. Although several statistical methods claim to correct for imperfect detection, their performance in species-area and β-diversity research remains unproven.

Movement of juvenile migratory birds from settlement to adulthood across the non-breeding range.

Among migratory vertebrates, high levels of fidelity to non-breeding sites during adulthood are common. If occupied sites vary in quality, strong site fidelity can have profound consequences for individual fitness and population demography. Given the prevalence of adult site fidelity, the regions of the non-breeding range to which juveniles first migrate, and the scale of any subsequent movements, are likely to be pivotal in shaping distributions and demographic processes across population ranges.

Temperature and microclimate refugia use influence migratory timings of a threatened grassland bird.

Background: Seasonal changes in resource availability are known to influence the migratory behaviour of animals, including both timing and distance. While the influence of environmental cues on migratory behaviour has been widely studied at the population level, it has rarely been examined at the spatial scale at which individuals experience their environment. Here, we test the hypothesis that individuals exposed to similar large-scale environmental cues may vary in migratory behaviour in response to the different microclimate conditions they experience at fine scales.

The overlooked importance of vagrancy in ecology and evolution.

Vagrancy is the occurrence of individuals outside the normal geographic range of their species. These rare and unpredictable events have long been neglected by the scientific community, belying a growing body of evidence that vagrancy can have an important role in eco-evolutionary processes at both population and community scales.

Combining remote sensing and tracking data to quantify species' cumulative exposure to anthropogenic change.

Identifying when and where organisms are exposed to anthropogenic change is crucial for diagnosing the drivers of biodiversity declines and implementing effective conservation measures. Accurately measuring individual-scale exposure to anthropogenic impacts across the annual cycle as they move across continents requires an approach that is both spatially and temporally explicit-now achievable through recent parallel advances in remote-sensing and individual tracking technologies. We combined 10 years of tracking data for a long-distance migrant, (common cuckoo, Cuculus canorus), with multi-dimensional remote-sensed spatial datasets encompassing thirteen relevant anthropogenic impacts (including infrastructure, hunting, habitat change, and climate change), to quantify mean hourly and total accumulated exposure of tracked individuals to anthropogenic change across each stage of the annual cycle.

Combining bird tracking data with high-resolution thermal mapping to identify microclimate refugia.

Elevated temperatures can have a range of fitness impacts, including high metabolic cost of thermoregulation, hence access to microclimate refugia may buffer individuals against exposure to high temperatures. However, studies examining the use of microclimate refugia, remain scarce. We combined high resolution microclimate modelling with GPS tracking data as a novel approach to identify the use and availability of cooler microclimate refugia (sites > 0.

Biogeographic multi-species occupancy models for large-scale survey data.

Ecologists often seek to infer patterns of species occurrence or community structure from survey data. Hierarchical models, including multi-species occupancy models (MSOMs), can improve inference by pooling information across multiple species via random effects. Originally developed for local-scale survey data, MSOMs are increasingly applied to larger spatial scales that transcend major abiotic gradients and dispersal barriers.

Bird migration: When vagrants become pioneers.

Vagrant birds are frequently recorded outside of their regular geographic range. A new study documents how vagrancy, in this case in an Asian songbird, can lead to establishment of a new migration route.

Sensitivity of migratory connectivity estimates to spatial sampling design.

Background: The use of statistical methods to quantify the strength of migratory connectivity is commonplace. However, little attention has been given to their sensitivity to spatial sampling designs and scales of inference.

Methods: We examine sources of bias and imprecision in the most widely used methodology, Mantel correlations, under a range of plausible sampling regimes using simulated migratory populations.

Replacing low-intensity cattle pasture with oil palm conserves dung beetle functional diversity when paired with forest protection.

Meeting rising demand for oil palm whilst minimizing the loss of tropical biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions is a core conservation challenge. One potential solution is focusing the expansion of high-yielding crops on presently low-yielding farmlands alongside protecting nearby tropical forests that can enhance provision of ecosystem functions. A key question is how this solution would impact invertebrate functional diversity.

Sparing land for secondary forest regeneration protects more tropical biodiversity than land sharing in cattle farming landscapes.

Effectively managing farming to meet food demand is vital for the future of biodiversity. Increasing yields on existing farmland can allow the abandonment (sparing) of low-yielding areas that subsequently recover as secondary forest. A key question is whether such "secondary sparing" conserves biodiversity more effectively than retaining wildlife-friendly habitat within farmland ("land sharing").

Carryover effects of long-distance avian migration are weaker than effects of breeding environment in a partially migratory bird.

Migration may expose individuals to a wide range of increasing anthropogenic threats. In addition to direct mortality effects, this exposure may influence post-migratory reproductive fitness. Partial migration-where a population comprises migrants and residents-represents a powerful opportunity to explore carryover effects of migration.

Mass-abundance scaling in avian communities is maintained after tropical selective logging.

Selective logging dominates forested landscapes across the tropics. Despite the structural damage incurred, selectively logged forests typically retain more biodiversity than other forest disturbances. Most logging impact studies consider conventional metrics, like species richness, but these can conceal subtle biodiversity impacts.

Generation lengths of the world's birds and their implications for extinction risk.

Birds have been comprehensively assessed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List more times than any other taxonomic group. However, to date, generation lengths have not been systematically estimated to scale population trends when undertaking assessments, as required by the criteria of the IUCN Red List. We compiled information from major databases of published life-history and trait data for all birds and imputed missing life-history data as a function of species traits with generalized linear mixed models.

Fitness consequences of different migratory strategies in partially migratory populations: A multi-taxa meta-analysis.

Partial migration-wherein migratory and non-migratory individuals exist within the same population-represents a behavioural dimorphism; for it to persist over time, both strategies should yield equal individual fitness. This balance may be maintained through trade-offs where migrants gain survival benefits by avoiding unfavourable conditions, while residents gain breeding benefits from early access to resources. There has been little overarching quantitative analysis of the evidence for this fitness balance.

The impact of secondary forest regeneration on ground-dwelling ant communities in the Tropical Andes.

Natural regeneration of abandoned farmland provides an important opportunity to contribute to global reforestation targets, including the Bonn Challenge. Of particular importance are the montane tropics, where a long history of farming, frequently on marginal soils, has rendered many ecosystems highly degraded and hotspots of extinction risk. Ants play crucial roles in ecosystem functioning, and a key question is how time since abandonment and elevation (and inherent temperature gradients therein) affect patterns of ant recovery within secondary forest systems.

Land-sparing agriculture sustains higher levels of avian functional diversity than land sharing.

The ecological impacts of meeting rising demands for food production can potentially be mitigated by two competing land-use strategies: off-setting natural habitats through intensification of existing farmland (land sparing), or elevating biodiversity within the agricultural matrix via the integration of "wildlife-friendly" habitat features (land sharing). However, a key unanswered question is whether sparing or sharing farming would best conserve functional diversity, which can promote ecosystem stability and resilience to future land-use change. Focusing on bird communities in tropical cloud forests of the Colombian Andes, we test the performance of each strategy in conserving functional diversity.

Interspecific variation in responses to microclimate by terrestrial isopods: implications in relation to climate change.

The importance of considering species-specific biotic interactions when predicting feedbacks between the effects of climate change and ecosystem functions is becoming widely recognised. The responses of soil animals to predicted changes in global climate could potentially have far-reaching consequences for fluxes of soil carbon, including climatic feedbacks resulting from increased emissions of carbon dioxide from soils. The responses of soil animals to different microclimates can be summarised as norms of reaction, in order to compare phenotypic differences in traits along environmental gradients.

Impacts of tropical forest disturbance on species vital rates.

Tropical forests are experiencing enormous threats from deforestation and habitat degradation. Much knowledge of the impacts of these land-use changes on tropical species comes from studies examining patterns of richness and abundance. Demographic vital rates (survival, reproduction, and movement) can also be affected by land-use change in a way that increases species vulnerability to extirpation, but in many cases these impacts may not be manifested in short-term changes in abundance or species richness.

Stay-at-home strategy brings fitness benefits to migrants.

In Focus: Lok, T., Veldhoen, L., Overdijk, O.

Simple settlement decisions explain common dispersal patterns in territorial species.

Dispersal is one of the least-understood aspects of animal behaviour. For example, little is known of the mechanisms that determine how individuals express different dispersal behaviours in response to different circumstances. Uncovering these mechanisms is important for our understanding of spatial population dynamics.

Migratory diversity predicts population declines in birds.

Declines in migratory species are a pressing concern worldwide, but the mechanisms underpinning these declines are not fully understood. We hypothesised that species with greater within-population variability in migratory movements and destinations, here termed 'migratory diversity', might be more resilient to environmental change. To test this, we related map-based metrics of migratory diversity to recent population trends for 340 European breeding birds.