Every year, many wild animals undertake long-distance migration to breed in the North, taking advantage of seasonally high pulses in food supply, fewer parasites and lower predation pressure in comparison with equatorial latitudes. However, growing evidence suggests that climate change-induced phenological mismatches have reduced food availability. Furthermore, novel pathogens and parasites are spreading Northwards, and nest or offspring predation has increased at many Arctic and North temperate locations. Altered trophic interactions have decreased the reproductive success and survival of migratory animals. Reduced advantages for long-distance migration have potentially serious consequences for community structure and ecosystem function. Changes in the benefits of migration need to be integrated into projections of population and ecosystem dynamics and targeted by innovative conservation actions. During this targeted workshop, we will discuss recent disruptions of migration profitability for birds, mammals and insect, together with consequences for population dynamics, community structure and ecosystem functioning as well as effective conservation measures.

Key references

Kubelka V., Sandercock B., Székely T. & Freckleton R. P. 2022: Animal migration to northern latitudes: environmental changes and increasing threats. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 37: 30–41. Cover page. (100+ media contributions, 36+ countries, 200,000,000+ approached people)

Wilcove D.S. & Wikelski M. 2008: Going, going, gone: is animal migration dissapearing? PLoSBiol. 6, e188.

Altizer S. et al. 2013: Climate change and infectious diseases: from evidence to a predictive framework. Science 341, 514–519.

Kubelka V. et al. 2018: Global pattern of nest predation is disrupted byclimate change in shorebirds. Science 362, 680–683.

Bairlein F. 2016: Migratory birds under threat. Science 354, 10–12.

- Vojtěch Kubelka (University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic)

Coping with environmental change: Are migrants particularly vulnerable?
- Zoltan Nemeth (University of Debrecen, Hungary)

Revealing threats through the full annual cycle in a long distance migratory bird species
- Orsolya Kiss (University of Szeged, Hungary)

A novel model applied on the constant effort mist-netting reveals important patterns in population dynamics of long-distance migratory birds
- Tomáš Telenský (Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic)

General discussion (15 min)