Global movement patterns of migratory birds illustrate their fascinating physical and
physiological abilities to cross continents and oceans. During their voyages, most birds land …

Using optimality perspectives is now regarded as an essential way of analysing and
understanding adaptations and behavioural strategies in bird migration. Optimization …

Migration, broadly defined as directional movement to take advantage of spatially distributed
resources, is a dramatic behaviour and an important component of many life histories that …

The metabolic costs of animal movement have been studied extensively under laboratory
conditions, although frequently these are a poor approximation of the costs of operating in …

Mountain ranges, deserts, ice fields and oceans generally act as barriers to the movement of
land-dependent animals, often profoundly sha** migration routes. We used satellite …

Migratory birds are physiologically specialized to accumulate massive fat stores (up to 50–
60% of body mass), and to transport and oxidize fatty acids at very high rates to sustain flight …

The small size of the billions of migrating songbirds commuting between temperate breeding
sites and the tropics has long prevented the study of the largest part of their annual cycle …

Many latitudinal insect migrants including agricultural pests, disease vectors, and beneficial
species show huge fluctuations in the year-to-year abundance of spring immigrants …

The physiological and biomechanical requirements of flight at high altitude have been the
subject of much interest. Here, we uncover a steep relation between heart rate and wingbeat …

Migratory birds regularly perform impressive long-distance flights, which are timed relative to
the anticipated environmental resources at destination areas that can be several thousand …