Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Animals enhance survival and reproductive success by synchronizing the timing of seasonal and daily behaviours with favourable environmental conditions. Climate change and increasing anthropogenic light at night may limit this temporal synchrony. My long-term research objective is to identify the intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms governing timing behaviours and how these may limit, or promote, adaptive responses to environmental change. My students and I will investigate the role of environmental factors experienced during development in determining phenotypic variation in avian migration timing, as well as how environmental variation shapes migration routes, timing, and daily activity patterns in birds and their insect prey. The short-term objectives of my proposed research are: 1) To test the hypothesis that natural variation in local environmental cues (e.g. photoperiod) during the nestling phase entrains migration timing programs (ontogenetic effect) and therefore facilitates flexible responses to climate change. 2) To determine whether spring timing adaptations limit those in other seasons and the degree to which fall timing is flexible to climate change effects. 3) To investigate the plasticity of daily timing and movement behaviour to new weather variability with climate change. 4) To determine whether avian migrants make flexible adjustments in their migratory timing and routes in response to artificial light at night (ALAN). We will use avian long-distance migratory species and the aerial insects they prey upon for the proposed research. The proposed research will support the training of 16 HQP. By integrating field experiments and animal-borne tracking systems to measure timing and movement behaviour in the wild, my students and I will advance our fundamental understanding of how animals time their daily and seasonal behaviours. Since this research investigates animal responses to rising temperatures with climate change and increasing anthropogenic light, it will advance our knowledge of the capacity of animals to respond adaptively to these changes, thereby enhancing the identification of populations at risk, and contributing to the development of more effective conservation management and policy for species of concern.