Journal article
Predicting source populations of vagrants using breeding population data: a case study of the lesser black-backed gull (Larus fuscus)
- Abstract:
- Vagrancy is critical in facilitating range expansion and colonization through exploration and occupation of potentially suitable habitat. Uncovering origins of vagrants will help us better understand not only species-specific vagrant movements, but how the dynamics of a naturally growing population influence vagrancy, and potentially lead to range expansion. Under the premise that occurrence of vagrants is linked to increasing population growth in the core of the breeding range, we assessed the utility of breeding population survey data to predict source populations of vagrants. Lesser Black-backed Gulls (LBBG) (Larus fuscus) served as our focal species due to their dramatic and well-documented history of vagrancy to North America in the last 30 years. We related annual occurrence of vagrants to indices of breeding population size and growth rate of breeding populations. We propose that the fastest growing population is the most likely source of recent vagrants to North America. Our study shows that it is possible to predict potential source populations of vagrants with breeding population data, but breeding surveys require increased standardization across years to improve models. For the Lesser Black-backed Gull, Iceland’s breeding population likely influenced vagrancy during the early years of colonization, but the major increase in vagrants occurred during a period of growth of Greenland’s population, suggesting that Greenland is the source population of the most recent pulse of vagrant LBBG to North America.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Version of record, 1.7MB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.3389/fevo.2021.637452
Authors
- Publisher:
- Frontiers Media
- Journal:
- Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution More from this journal
- Volume:
- 9
- Article number:
- 637452
- Publication date:
- 2021-12-03
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-11-12
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
2296-701X
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1232174
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1232174
- Deposit date:
-
2022-01-20
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Zawadzki et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © 2021 Zawadzki, Hallgrimsson, Veit, Rasmussen, Boertmann, Gillies and Guilford. 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) and the copyright owner(s) 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.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record