ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2023
Evaluating the effects of moonlight on the vertical flight profiles of three western palaearctic swifts.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Lunar cycle and moonlight intensity influence nocturnal migration patterns in a small songbird.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Effects of nocturnal celestial illumination on high-flying migrant insects.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Evaluating the effects of moonlight on the vertical flight profiles of three western palaearctic swifts.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
16 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Recent studies have suggested the presence of moonlight mediated behaviour in avian aerial insectivores, such as swifts. Here, we use the combined analysis of state-of-the-art activity logger data across three swift species, the common, pallid and alpine swifts, to quantify flight height and activity in responses to moonlight-driven crepuscular and nocturnal light conditions. Our results show a significant response in flight heights to moonlight illuminance for common and pallid swifts, i.e. when moon illuminance increased flight height also increased, while a moonlight-driven response is absent in alpine swifts. We show a weak relationship between night-time illuminance-driven responses and twilight ascending behaviour, suggesting a decoupling of both crepuscular and night-time behaviour. We suggest that swifts optimize their flight behaviour to adapt to favourable night-time light conditions, driven by light-responsive and size-dependent vertical insect stratification and weather conditions.
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Registered trials
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