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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Bird Sci.
Sec. Bird Movements and Migration
Volume 3 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fbirs.2024.1417867

Examining impacts of a warming climate on the non-breeding distribution and relative abundance of males and females by latitude in a classic differential migrant When: Today

Provisionally accepted
Dawn M. O'neal Dawn M. O'neal 1,2Suzanne H. Austin Suzanne H. Austin 3Ellen D. Ketterson Ellen D. Ketterson 1,2*
  • 1 Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, United States
  • 2 Department of Biology, College of Arts and Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, Indiana, United States
  • 3 Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Many changes in species' geographic distributions have been attributed to recent climate warming. One understudied phenomenon is the effect of climate change on differential migrants, species in which the sexes differ in distance migrated to and from the breeding range. We evaluated the impact of climate change on differential migration in the dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis) by assessing temporal and geographic changes in overall population abundance throughout the winter range over the past 60 years. We also compared the abundance of females in wintering populations studied 15 years ago with historical abundances studied 45 years ago We observed a northward movement of the population as a whole and an increase in female abundance at higher latitudes that correlated with recent changes in winter climate. These findings suggest that climate change has reduced distance migrated in this species and increased the proportion of females wintering at higher latitudes, providing new insights into the impact of climate warming on migratory distance and winter distributions.

    Keywords: Bird Movements and Migration Dawn M O'neal: Writing -original draft. Ellen D Ketterson: Writing -original draft, Writing -review & editing. Suzanne H Austin: Writing -Writing, statistical analyses -review & editing migration, differential migration, Sex, Dark-eyed junco, climate

    Received: 15 Apr 2024; Accepted: 14 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 O'neal, Austin and Ketterson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ellen D. Ketterson, Department of Biology, College of Arts and Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, 47405, Indiana, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.