What Can Movement Ecology Tell Us About Reproductive Strategies?
The emerging field of movement ecology largely benefited from the recent development in wildlife tracking technologies, enhanced computation abilities and powerful data analysis tools. Movement ecology studies have utilized those technological advances, along with new conceptual/theoretical frameworks, to elucidate movement patterns, the underlying movement processes and their ecological and evolutionary consequences. Despite these significant advances, some of the key questions on how movement shapes the ecology, behavior and evolution of organisms across multiple spatial and temporal scales remain unresolved. In this talk, I will highlight some of the most exciting developments and challenges in movement ecology, and focus on insights relevant to the study of reproductive strategies of both animals and plants. These include (i) how does variation in various life-history traits determine reproductive phenology and spatial spread of wind-dispersed trees? (ii) how does early-life experience determine flight performance and survival of migrating storks and cranes, and foraging vultures? and (iii) how do diurnal (jackdaws, black-winged kites, kestrels) and nocturnal (barn owls and fruit bats) foragers differ in their movements in relation to sex, age and reproductive state?
Host: Chris Monk