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Bruderer, B., V. Salewski & F. Liechti

Gedanken zur Evolution des Vogelzuges.

2008

105

165–177

Key words
(von 1994 bis 2006 vergeben)

Zugverhalten, Zugroute, Wanderung, Abwanderung, Dismigration, dispersal, Dispersionsbewegung, Umsiedlung, Ausbreitung, Kolonisierung, Arealausweitung, Umverteilung, saisonale Ausweichbewegung, Brutgebiet, Phylogenie, Zugevolution, genetische Kontrolle

Schlagwort_Vogelart
(wissenschaftlich)

Calidris canutus, Lanius collurio, Oenanthe oenanthe, Catharus ustulatus, Sylvia atricapilla, Sturnus vulgaris, Sylvia, Phylloscopus, Anthus, Motacilla

Schlagwort_Vogelart
(deutsch)

Knutt, Neuntöter, Steinschmätzer, Zwergdrossel, Mönchsgrasmücke, Star, Grasmücken, Laubsänger, Pieper, Stelzen

deutsch

Abhandlung

Reflections about the evolution of bird migration. – We discuss alternatives to the recently predominating ideas (a) that bird migration evolved from low towards higher latitudes to capitalise on seasonally abundant resources allowing higher reproductive output, and (b) that migrant birds have their origin generally in southern tropical areas (southern-home theory). Different from this view, we suggest that range expansions into areas with increasing seasonality and potentially higher reproductive output are due to gradual colonization by dispersal. Birds having colonized or living in increasingly seasonal habitats have to cope with low levels of resources during the low-productivity season. According to taxon-specific life history traits, they may either adapt to on-site or close-by survival under harsh conditions or by the evolution of migration from the breeding grounds towards seasonally favourable non-breeding areas. Suboscines and various basal clades of oscines have their origin or at least their main radiation on southern continents. Their spreading to higher latitudes, followed by the evolution of migratory habits favoured (a) the interpretation of dispersal to higher latitudes as «migration» and (b) the idea of a southern tropical origin as a general feature of Holarctic long-distance migrants. Besides pleading for the evolution of bird migration from breeding grounds towards non-breeding grounds because of enhanced fitness through better survival in the non-breeding season, we conclude from phylo-geographic analyses that important families of the Passerida among Palaearctic migrants had their main radiation on the northern continents, thus challenging the idea that they are southern tropical birds that come to higher latitudes just as «breeding guests».