Climate alters the movement ecology of a non-migratory bird - dataset

Global climate change is causing increased climate extremes threatening
biodiversity and altering ecosystems. Climate is comprised of many
variables including air temperature, barometric pressure, solar radiation,
wind, relative humidity, and precipitation that interact with each other.
As movement connects various aspects of an animal’s life, understanding
how climate influences movement at a fine-temporal scale will be critical
to the long-term conservation of species impacted by climate change. The
sedentary nature of non-migratory species could increase some species risk
of extirpation caused by climate change. We used Northern Bobwhite
(Colinus virginianus; hereafter bobwhite) as a model to better understand
the relationship between climate and the movement ecology of a
non-migratory species at a fine-temporal scale. We collected movement data
on bobwhite from across western Oklahoma during 2019–2020 and paired these
data with meteorological data. We analyzed movement three different ways
(probability of movement, hourly distance moved, and sinuosity) using two
calculated movement metrics: hourly movement (displacement between two
consecutive fixes an hour apart) and sinuosity (a form of tortuosity that
determines the amount of curvature of a random search path). We used
generalized linear-mixed models to analyze probability of movement and
hourly distance moved, and used linear-mixed models o analyze sinuosity.
The interaction between air temperature and solar radiation affected
probability of movement and hourly distance moved. Bobwhite movement
increased as air temperature increased beyond 10oC during low solar
radiation. During medium and high solar radiation, bobwhite moved farther
as air temperature increased until 25–30oC when hourly distance moved
plateaued. Bobwhite sinuosity increased as solar radiation increased. Our
results show that specific climate variables alter the fine-scale movement
of a non-migratory species. Understanding the link between climate and
movement is important to determining how climate change may impact a
species’ space use and fitness now and in the future.