Using Global Telemetry to Understand Avian Movement and Migration
USGS researchers are collaborating with partners around the globe to leverage new and existing telemetry data to answer broad scale questions about factors influencing avian movement and migration.
Wild waterfowl are globally distributed and have diverse movements, including the following patterns:
- seasonal migration- regular, cyclical movements of birds between breeding and wintering grounds, typically occurring twice a year;
- range residency- birds' tendency to occupy specific areas (home ranges), within the broader geographical area where a species is found (population range); and
- nomadism- irregular, non-seasonal movements between locations, often driven by the availability of food or water.
This diversity of movements allows ducks and geese to play critical and variable roles in the spread and persistence of avian influenza across the landscape. For instance, non-migratory waterfowl populations maintain low pathogenic avian influenza transmission year-round, while birds that exhibit long distance seasonal migrations contribute to viral dispersal and reassortment. Waterfowl abundance and migration patterns are also linked to outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in poultry.
Given the importance of waterfowl movement ecology to underlying avian influenza dynamics, understanding how viruses are likely to spread and persist in future scenarios relies on the ability to accurately understand how waterfowl will respond to changes in their environment. To address this information need, USGS researchers are using historical and contemporary telemetry data from around the globe to identify how wild birds have altered their local and migratory movements. We are particularly interested in exploring bird responses to short- and long-term changes in factors such as weather (i.e., precipitation, daily temperature), habitat availability and how humans interact with wildlife.
Global telemetry data are also used in USGS efforts to develop disease transmission models to explore how incursions of novel viruses may either spread or be limited by environmental conditions and resulting host species movements.
<< Back to Avian Influenza Research at EESC
USGS researchers are collaborating with partners around the globe to leverage new and existing telemetry data to answer broad scale questions about factors influencing avian movement and migration.
Wild waterfowl are globally distributed and have diverse movements, including the following patterns:
- seasonal migration- regular, cyclical movements of birds between breeding and wintering grounds, typically occurring twice a year;
- range residency- birds' tendency to occupy specific areas (home ranges), within the broader geographical area where a species is found (population range); and
- nomadism- irregular, non-seasonal movements between locations, often driven by the availability of food or water.
This diversity of movements allows ducks and geese to play critical and variable roles in the spread and persistence of avian influenza across the landscape. For instance, non-migratory waterfowl populations maintain low pathogenic avian influenza transmission year-round, while birds that exhibit long distance seasonal migrations contribute to viral dispersal and reassortment. Waterfowl abundance and migration patterns are also linked to outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in poultry.
Given the importance of waterfowl movement ecology to underlying avian influenza dynamics, understanding how viruses are likely to spread and persist in future scenarios relies on the ability to accurately understand how waterfowl will respond to changes in their environment. To address this information need, USGS researchers are using historical and contemporary telemetry data from around the globe to identify how wild birds have altered their local and migratory movements. We are particularly interested in exploring bird responses to short- and long-term changes in factors such as weather (i.e., precipitation, daily temperature), habitat availability and how humans interact with wildlife.
Global telemetry data are also used in USGS efforts to develop disease transmission models to explore how incursions of novel viruses may either spread or be limited by environmental conditions and resulting host species movements.
<< Back to Avian Influenza Research at EESC