MIGRATION

Bird migration has been fascinating humans since centuries. The astounding long-distance migratory movements of birds, which freely move across continents and oceans to reach even the most remote areas of the world, inevitably exert a sense of wonder in all of us and make us realize how intimately connected are even the most distant areas of the biosphere. Individual miniaturized tracking technologies are now allowing us to appreciate such movements to an unprecedented level of detail. We are exploiting the ease of study of colonial species and the inter-individual and inter-population variability of migratory behaviour, as highlighted by individual tracking, to tackle several key questions, including how populations differentiate their migratory patterns, how individuals face the environmental challenges of long-distance movements, and ultimately how migration affect fitness. Furthermore, we are investigating the extent to which migratory behaviour is affected by carryover effects from previous life cycle stages, and the relative contribution of genetic constitution and external environment in affecting individual variation in migratory behaviour.