ArticleEvolution; international journal of organic evolution2020
Evolution of chain migration in an aerial insectivorous bird, the common swift Apus apus.
Article in Evolution; international journal of organic evolution, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 43 citations in OpenAlex.
- Miniaturized light-level geolocators provide novel insight into the migration ecology of an endangered songbird.Movement ecology · 2026Article
- Shape, Size and Bilateral Asymmetry of the Humerus and Femur in the Common Swift (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Winter connectivity and leapfrog migration in a migratory passerine.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Long-term study reveals central European aerial insectivores as an unusual group of hosts that harbor mostly helminths that are unable to complete life-cycles in the nesting quarters of their hosts.Parasites & vectors · 2023Article
- No "carry-over" effects of tracking devices on return rate and parameters determining reproductive success in once and repeatedly tagged common swifts (Apus apus), a long-distance migratory bird.Movement ecology · 2022Article
- The role of context in elucidating drivers of animal movement.Ecology and evolution · 2022Review
- Diet of breeding Eleonora's falconEcology and evolution · 2022Article
- A 30,000-km journey by Apus apus pekinensis tracks arid lands between northern China and south-western Africa.Movement ecology · 2022Article
- Cool birds: first evidence of energy-saving nocturnal torpor in free-living common swiftsBiology letters · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
19 authors at 13 institutions in 9 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Spectacular long-distance migration has evolved repeatedly in animals enabling exploration of resources separated in time and space. In birds, these patterns are largely driven by seasonality, cost of migration, and asymmetries in competition leading most often to leapfrog migration, where northern breeding populations winter furthest to the south. Here, we show that the highly aerial common swift Apus apus, spending the nonbreeding period on the wing, instead exhibits a rarely found chain migration pattern, where the most southern breeding populations in Europe migrate to wintering areas furthest to the south in Africa, whereas the northern populations winter to the north. The swifts concentrated in three major areas in sub-Saharan Africa during the nonbreeding period, with substantial overlap of nearby breeding populations. We found that the southern breeding swifts were larger, raised more young, and arrived to the wintering areas with higher seasonal variation in greenness (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) earlier than the northern breeding swifts. This unusual chain migration pattern in common swifts is largely driven by differential annual timing and we suggest it evolves by prior occupancy and dominance by size in the breeding quarters and by prior occupancy combined with diffuse competition in the winter.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.