Oceanic archipelagos are vulnerable to natural introduction of parasites via migratory birds. Our aim was to characterize the geographic origins of two Plasmodium parasite lineages detected in the Galapagos Islands and in North American breeding bobolinks (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) that regularly stop in Galapagos during migration to their South American overwintering sites. We used samples from a...

Seasonal migration is a widespread phenomenon, which is found in many different lineages of animals. This spectacular behaviour allows animals to avoid seasonally adverse environmental conditions to exploit more favourable habitats. Migration has been intensively studied in birds, which display astonishing variation in migration strategies, thus providing a powerful system for studying the ecol...

The migrant black-tailed godwit (Limosa limosa) traditionally used natural wetlands in the Iberian Peninsula to prepare for migratory flights by feeding mainly in estuaries. In recent decades, this species has become increasingly dependent on rice fields, thereby relying on a plant-based diet for fuelling. Dietary fatty acids (FA) seem to be determinant to the composition of accumulated subcuta...

Avian migration, which involves billions of birds flying vast distances, is known to influence all aspects of avian life. Here we investigate how birds fit moult into an annual cycle determined by the need to migrate. Large variation exists in moulting patterns in relation to migration: for instance, moult can occur after breeding in the summer or after arrival in the wintering quarters. Here w...

Plasma metabolites provide information about the physiological state and fuel use of birds, and have been used for predicting refueling rates of birds during migratory stopovers. However, little is known about the effect of diet on metabolite concentrations in small songbirds. We investigated the effect of dietary macronutrient composition on lipid and protein metabolites in captive White-throa...

We evaluated the preliminary impact of the Canadian "non-toxic" shotshell policy, for the hunting of migratory game birds, by examining blood-lead levels of First Nations people living in sub-arctic Canada. If the use of lead shotshell was the major source of lead exposure as has been postulated and the ban on the use of lead shotshell for hunting migratory birds was immediately effective, we w...

The world's Arctic latitudes are some of the most recently colonized by birds, and an understanding of the migratory connectivity of circumpolar species offers insights into the mechanisms of range expansion and speciation. Migratory divides exist for many birds, however for many taxa it is unclear where such boundaries lie, and to what extent these affect the connectivity of species breeding a...