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65 results for “Bird flight”
The respiratory system influences flight mechanics in soaring birds
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Data from: Evaluation of methods to estimate nocturnal bird migration activity: A comparison of radar and nocturnal flight call monitoring in the American West
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Ancient insect vision tuned for flight amongst rocks and plants underpins natural flower colour diversity - rock, mineral, stick, bark, leaf, bird- and insect-flower petal reflectance spectra
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Interspecific tandem flights in nocturnally migrating terrestrial birds
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Data from: Enlargement of sternum traits facilitated the evolution of powered flight in birds
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Flight initiation distances of birds
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Feather evolution following flight loss in crown group birds: relaxed selection and developmental constraints
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Data and codes from: Flight hampers the evolution of weapons in birds
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The effect of flight efficiency on gap‐crossing ability in Amazonian forest birds
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Data from: Bird-inspired reflexive morphing enables rudderless flight
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Data from: Dietary antioxidants attenuate the endocrine stress response during long-duration flight of a migratory bird
<p>Glucocorticoids (GCs) are metabolic hormones that promote catabolic processes, which release stored energy and support high metabolic demands such as during prolonged flights of migrating birds. Dietary antioxidants (e.g., anthocyanins) support metabolism by quenching excess reactive oxygen species produced during aerobic metabolism, and also by activating metabolic pathways that, similar to GCs' function, release stored energy, although the extent of complementarity between GCs and dietary antioxidants is not well known. If anthocyanins complement GCs functions, birds consuming anthocyanin-rich food can be expected to limit the secretion of GCs when coping with a metabolically challenging activity, avoiding the exposure to potential hormonal detrimental effects. We tested this hypothesis in European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) flying in a windtunnel. We compared levels of corticosterone, the main avian GCs, immediately after a sustained flight and at rest for birds that were fed diets with or without an anthocyanin supplement. As predicted, we found (1) higher corticosterone after flight than at rest in both diet groups, and (2) anthocyanin-supplemented birds had less elevated corticosterone after flight than unsupplemented control birds. This provides novel evidence that dietary antioxidants attenuate the activation of the HPA axis (i.e. increased secretion of corticosterone) during long-duration flight.</p>
Data from: State-space modelling of the flight behaviour of a soaring bird provides new insights to migratory strategies
1. Characterizing the spatiotemporal variation of animal behaviour can elucidate the way individuals interact with their environment and allocate energy. Increasing sophistication of tracking technologies paired with novel analytical approaches allows the characterisation of movement dynamics even when an individual is not directly observable. 2. In this study, high-resolution movement data collected via global positioning system (GPS) tracking in three dimensions were paired with topographical information and used in a Bayesian state-space model to describe the flight modes of migrating golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) in eastern North America. 3. Our model identified five functional behavioural states, two of which were previously undescribed variations on thermal soaring. The other states comprised gliding, perching and orographic soaring. States were discriminated by movement features in the horizontal (step length and turning angle) and vertical (change in altitude) planes, and by the association with ridgelines promoting wind deflection. Tracked eagles spent 2%, 31%, 38%, 9% and 20% of their day time in directed thermal soaring, gliding, convoluted thermal soaring, perching and orographic soaring, respectively. The analysis of the relative occurrence of these flight modes highlighted yearly, seasonal, age, individual and sex differences in flight strategy and performance. Particularly, less energy-efficient orographic soaring was more frequent in autumn, when thermals were less available. Adult birds were also better at optimising energy efficiency than sub-adults. 4. Our approach represents the first example of a state-space model for bird flight mode using altitude data in conjunction with horizontal locations, and is applicable to other flying organisms where similar data are available. The ability to describe animal movements in a three-dimensional habitat is critical to advance our understanding of the functional processes driving animals' decisions.
Data from: Interspecific variation in the structural properties of flight feathers in birds indicates adaptation to flight requirements and habitat
1. The functional significance of intra- and interspecific structural variations in the flight feathers of birds is poorly understood. Here, a phylogenetic comparative analysis of four structural features (rachis width, barb and barbule density and porosity) of proximal and distal primary feathers of 137 European bird species was conducted. 2. Flight type (flapping and soaring, flapping and gliding, continuous flapping or passerine type), habitat (terrestrial, riparian or aquatic), wing characteristics (wing area, S and aspect ratio, AR) and moult strategy were all found to affect feather structure to some extent. Species characterized by low wing-beat frequency flight (soaring and gliding) have broader feather rachises (shafts) and feather vanes with lower barb density than birds associated with more active flapping modes of flight. However, the effect of flying mode on rachis width disappeared after controlling for S and AR, suggesting that rachis width is primarily determined by wing morphology. 3. Rachis width and feather vane density are likely related to differences in force distribution across the wingspan during different flight modes. An increase in shaft diameter, barb density and porosity from the proximal to distal wing feathers was found and was highest in species with flapping flight indicating that aerodynamic forces are more biased towards the distal feathers in flapping flyers than in soarers and gliders. 4. Habitat affected barb and barbule density, which was greatest in aquatic species, and within this group, barb density was greater in divers than non-divers, suggesting that the need for water repellency and resistance to water penetration may influence feather structure. However, we found little support for the importance of porosity in water repellency and water penetration, because porosity was similar in aquatic, riparian and terrestrial species and among the aquatic birds (divers and non-divers). We also found that barb density was affected by moult pattern. 5. Our results have broad implications for the understanding of the selection pressures driving flight feather functional morphology. Specifically, the large sample size relative to any previous studies has emphasized that the morphology of flight feathers is the result of a suite of selection pressures. As well as routine flight needs, constraints during moulting, habitat (particularly aquatic) and migratory requirements also affect flight feather morphology. Identifying the exact nature of these trade-offs will perhaps inform the reconstruction of the flying modes of extinct birds.
Life history predicts flight muscle phenotype and function in birds
<p>1. Functional traits are the essential phenotypes that underlie an organism's life history and ecology. Although biologists have long recognized that intraspecific variation is consequential to an animals' ecology, studies of functional variation are often restricted to species-level comparisons, ignoring critical variation within species. In birds, interspecific comparisons have been foundational in connecting flight muscle phenotypes to species-level ecology, but intraspecific variation has remained largely unexplored.</p> <p>2. We asked how age- and sex-dependent demands on flight muscle function are reconciled in birds. The flight muscle is an essential multifunctional organ, mediating a large range of functions associated with powered flight and thermoregulation. These functions must be balanced over an individual's lifetime.</p> <p>3. We leveraged within- and between-species comparisons in a clade of small passerines (<em>Tarsiger</em> bush-robins) from the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. We integrated measurements of flight muscle physiology, morphology, behavior, phenology, and environmental data, analyzing trait data within a context of three widespread, adaptive life-history strategies – sexual dichromatism, age and sex-structured migration, and delayed plumage maturation. This approach provides a framework of the selective forces that shape functional variation within and between species.</p> <p>4. We found more variation in flight muscle traits within species than has been previously described between species of birds under 20 g. This variation was associated with the discovery of mixed muscle fiber types (i.e. both fast glycolytic and fast oxidative fibers), which differ markedly in their physiological and functional attributes. This result is surprising given that the flight muscles of small birds are generally thought to contain only fast oxidative fibers, suggesting a novel ecological context for glycolytic muscle fibers in small birds. Within each species, flight muscle phenotypes varied by age and sex, reflecting the functional demands at different life-history stages and the pressures that individuals face as a result of their multi-class identity (i.e. species, age, and sex).</p> <p>5. Our findings reveal new links between avian physiology, ecology, behavior, and life history, while demonstrating the importance of demographic-dependent selection in shaping functional phenotypic variation. </p>
Myoglobin as a conservation-relevant predictor of short-distance flight capacity in Neotropical forest birds
<p>Some forest-dwelling tropical bird species are unable or unwilling to fly even a few hundred meters across habitat discontinuities, restricting connectivity of isolated populations in fragmented landscapes. Experimental evidence for flight limitation has reliably predicted occurrence across archipelagoes of habitat fragments varying in their distance from potential source populations. Mechanistic explanations for large differences in flight capacity of tropical birds, even over remarkably short distances, have not been tested. We evaluated myoglobin concentration in pectoralis muscles and hearts of eight Neotropical species for which experimental evidence revealing a wide range of flight abilities exists. We found a strong positive relationship between myoglobin concentration in the pectoralis muscles, but not hearts, and average over-water flight distance during dispersal-challenge experiments. The approximately 2.5-fold difference in pectoralis myoglobin concentration is directly associated with flight capacity and allows predictions of species or species groups most likely to be impeded by habitat discontinuities and therefore at conservation risk in fragmented landscapes.</p>
The interplay of wind and uplift facilitates over-water flight in facultative soaring birds
<p class="western"><span>Flying over the open sea is energetically costly for terrestrial birds. Despite this, over-water journeys of many birds, sometimes hundreds of kilometers long, are uncovered by bio-logging technology. To understand how these birds afford their flights over the open sea, we investigated the role of atmospheric conditions, specifically wind and uplift, in subsidizing over-water flight at the global scale. We first established that ∆<i>T</i>, the temperature difference between sea surface and air, is a meaningful proxy for uplift over<span> water</span>. Using this proxy, we showed that the spatio-temporal patterns of sea-crossing in terrestrial migratory birds is associated with favorable uplift conditions. We then analyzed route selection over the open sea for <span>five</span> facultative soaring species, representing all major migratory flyways. The birds maximized wind support when selecting their sea-crossing routes and selected higher uplift when suitable wind support<span> was</span> available.<span> They also preferred routes with low long-term uncertainty in wind conditions. </span>Our findings suggest that, in addition to wind, uplift may play a key role in the energy seascape for bird migration that in turn determines strategies and associated costs for birds crossing ecological barriers such as the open sea.</span></p>
Data from: Convergent regulatory evolution and loss of flight in palaeognathous birds
A core question in evolutionary biology is whether convergent phenotypic evolution is driven by convergent molecular changes in proteins or regulatory regions. We combined phylogenomic, developmental, and epigenomic analysis of 11 new genomes of paleognathous birds, including an extinct moa, to show that convergent evolution of regulatory regions, more so than protein-coding genes, is prevalent among developmental pathways associated with independent losses of flight. A Bayesian analysis of 284,001 conserved noncoding elements, 60,665 of which are corroborated as enhancers by open chromatin states during development, identified 2355 independent accelerations along lineages of flightless paleognaths, with functional consequences for driving gene expression in the developing forelimb. Our results suggest that the genomic landscape associated with morphological convergence in ratites has a substantial shared regulatory component.
Data from: Interspecific variation in the structural properties of flight feathers in birds indicates adaptation to flight requirements and habitat
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Myoglobin as a conservation-relevant predictor of short-distance flight capacity in Neotropical forest birds
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Data from: Urban areas affect flight altitudes of nocturnally migrating birds
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These curated guides explain access requirements, typical timelines, costs, and reuse considerations for widely used research datasets.
Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.