Functional connectivity experiments reflect routine movement behavior of a tropical hummingbird species

Translocation experiments, in which researchers displace animals then monitor their movements to return home, are commonly used as tools to assess functional connectivity of fragmented landscapes. Such experiments are purported to have important advantages of being time efficient and standardizing 'motivation' to move across individuals. Yet, we lack tests of whether movement behavior of translocated birds reflects natural behavior of unmanipulated birds. We compared the routine movement behavior of a tropical hummingbird (Phaethornis guy) to that of experimentally translocated individuals. We tested for differences in site-selection patterns during movement at two spatial scales (point and path levels). We also compared movement rates between treatments. Behaviors documented during translocation experiments reflected those observed during routine movements. At the point level, both translocated and non-translocated birds showed similar levels of preference for mature tropical forest. A...