Spring arrival of the common cuckoo at breeding grounds is strongly determined by environmental conditions in tropical Africa

Failure to adapt migration timing to changes in environmental conditions along migration routes and at breeding locations can result in mismatches across trophic levels, as occurs between the brood parasitic common cuckoo Cuculus canorus and its hosts. Using satellite tracking data from 87 male cuckoos across 11 years, we evaluate why the cuckoo has not advanced its arrival to the UK. Across years, breeding ground arrival was primarily determined by timing of departure from stopover in West Africa before northward crossing of the Sahara. Together with high population synchrony and low apparent endogenous control of this event, this suggests that a seasonal ecological constraint operating here limits overall variation in breeding grounds arrival, although this event was itself influenced by carry-over from timing of arrival into tropical Africa. Between-year variation within individuals was, in contrast, mostly determined by northward migration through Europe, likely due to weather condi..., These datasets were constructed as described in the Methods of the paper. mig_timing_df.csv is the cleaned Julian date of each migratory milestone, with associated covariates, by PTT and year. mig_timing_df_uncertainty.csv is the uncertainty associated with each milestone., The data files are in comma-separated value format and are designed to be analysed using the script analyse_cuckoo_mig_milestones.R.

若无法使迁徙时间适配迁徙路线及繁殖地的环境条件变化，可能引发营养级间的错配现象，正如巢寄生的普通杜鹃（Cuculus canorus）与其宿主之间的典型情况。本研究借助11年间87只雄性杜鹃的卫星追踪数据，探究杜鹃未能提前抵达英国的原因。多年间，繁殖地抵达时间主要由穿越撒哈拉沙漠前在西非中途停留地的出发时刻决定。结合该事件较高的种群同步性与较低的内源性调控强度，这暗示此处存在的季节性生态约束限制了繁殖地抵达时间的整体变异，尽管该事件本身亦受抵达热带非洲的时间的携带效应影响。与之相对，个体内部的年间差异主要由欧洲境内的北迁迁徙过程决定，这大概率与天气条件有关……
本数据集严格遵循论文方法部分所述流程构建。mig_timing_df.csv为经清洗后的各迁徙里程碑的儒略日数据，附带对应每个PTT与年份的协变量信息；mig_timing_df_uncertainty.csv为各迁徙里程碑对应的不确定性数据。所有数据文件均采用逗号分隔值（CSV）格式，适配脚本analyse_cuckoo_mig_milestones.R开展分析。