Colby R Slezak, Erik J Blomberg, Amber M Roth, Liam A Berigan, Alexander C Fish, Rachel Darling, Sarah J Clements, Greg Balkcom, Bobbi Carpenter, Gary Costanzo, Jeffrey Duguay, Clayton L Graham, William Harvey, Michael Hook, Douglas L Howell, Seth Maddox, Shawn W Meyer, Theodore C Nichols, J Bruce Pollard, Christian Roy, Joshua C Stiller, Jacob N Straub, Mathieu Tetreault, Reina Tyl, Lisa Williams, Jennifer E Kilburn, Scott R McWilliams
Conventional life-history theory predicts that energy-demanding events such as reproduction and migration must be temporally segregated to avoid resource limitation. Here, we provide, to our knowledge, the first direct evidence of 'itinerant breeding' in a migratory bird, an incredibly rare breeding strategy (less than 0.1% of extant bird species) that involves the temporal overlap of migratory and reproductive periods of the annual cycle. Based on GPS-tracking of over 200 female American woodcock, most female woodcock (greater than 80%) nested more than once (some up to six times) with short re-nest intervals, and females moved northwards on average 800 km between first and second nests, and then smaller distances ( ca 200+ km) between subsequent nesting attempts...
April 30, 2024: Proceedings. Biological Sciences