Zur Situation gehörloser Menschen im Alter (SIGMA)

In dem Projekt SIGMA wurden im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend erstmals aus der Perspektive gehörloser Menschen im Alter ihre individuellen Ressourcen sowie die Qualität und Quantität von Angeboten und Maßnahmen der Altenhilfe erforscht. Zwischen 2006 und 2009 wurden u.a. mehr als 200 gehörlose Menschen über 55 Jahre zu ihren spezifischen Lebensbedingungen und Lebensvorstellungen interviewt. Darüber hinaus wurden auch Experten zu der Versorgungssituation der Zielgruppe befragt. Die Ergebnisse belegen, dass für gehörlose Menschen auch im Alter der Kontakt zur Gehörlosengemeinschaft neben der Familie die zentrale soziale Ressource bildet. Sobald hier die Teilhabe aufgrund eingeschränkter Mobilität nicht mehr möglich ist, sind gehörlose Menschen besonders von Vereinsamung bedroht. Gehörlosen Menschen stehen von wenigen Ausnahmen abgesehen keine spezifischen Angebote zur Verfügung, die ihre sprachlichen und kulturellen Bedürfnisse angemessen berücksichtigen. Insbesondere Angebote der medizinischen und ambulanten Ver­sor­gung sowie Altenwohnheime, die hörenden Menschen zur Verfügung stehen, sind auf die kommunikativen Anforderungen gehörloser Menschen nicht vorbereitet

Biological Earth observation with animal sensors

Space-based tracking technology using low-cost miniature tags is now delivering data on fine-scale animal movement at near-global scale. Linked with remotely sensed environmental data, this offers a biological lens on habitat integrity and connectivity for conservation and human health; a global network of animal sentinels of environmen-tal change

Corticosterone and the departure likelihood of migrants from stopover

W\ue4hrend des Zuges m\ufcssen V\uf6gel entscheiden wann die Rastgebiete wieder verlassen werden. Diese Entscheidung h\ue4ngt von extrinsischen Faktoren wie zum Beispiel von verschiedenen Wetterbedingungen, aber auch von intrinsischen Faktoren wie Energiereserven ab. Die physiologischen Mechanismen, die hinter dieser Entscheidung stecken, sind jedoch zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt noch unverstanden. V\uf6gel, die bereit sind den Rastplatz zu verlassen, ben\uf6tigen Fettreserven, die w\ue4hrend des Fliegens in Energie umgewandelt werden k\uf6nnen sowie eine erh\uf6hte Locomotion. Corticosteron, das Haupt- Glucocorticoid Hormon bei V\uf6geln, auf einem Grundniveau steht im Zusammenhang mit der Mobilisation von Energie und f\ufchrt weiterhin zu einer Stimulierung des Bewegungsapparates. In dieser Studie sammelten wir Felddaten von Corticosteron auf einem Grundniveau, Zugunruhe und den tats\ue4chlichem Abzug von Steinschm\ue4tzern an einem Rastplatz. Zugunruhe korrelierte positiv mit dem Corticosteron-Level auf Grundniveau. Desweitern zeigte sich ein Trend, dass V\uf6gel mit h\uf6heren Corticosteron Grundniveauwerten eher den Rastplatz verlie fen als V\uf6gel mit geringeren Corticosteronwerten. Auf unserem Wissensstand basierend ist das die erste Untersuchung, die ein hormonelles Signal mit Zugunruhe in Verbindung bringt. Unsere Ergebnisse unterst\ufctzen die Hypothese, dass Corticosteron involviert ist in die Abzugswahrscheinlichkeit von migrierenden Vogelarten an einem Rastplatz. Nachfolgende Studien sollten untersuchen wie Corticosteron bei Zugv\uf6geln hochreguliert wird, wenn sie bereit sind den Rastplatz zu verlassen.During migration birds have to decide when to leave stopover sites. This decision depends on extrinsic factors such as weather conditions but also on intrinsic factors such as fuel reserves. However, the physiological mechanism which underlies this decision is at this time unknown. Birds which are ready to depart need high amounts of fuel reserves to have the availability of energy during flight and also an increase of locomotion. Corticosterone, the main glucocorticoid hormone in birds, at baseline level is involved in the mobilization of energy and in stimulation of locomotion. In this study we collected field data of baseline corticosterone, migratory restlessness and actual departure of northern wheatears at stopover. Migratory restlessness was positively correlated with baseline corticosterone-level. Also, a trend was found that birds with higher baseline corticosterone-levels left the stopover earlier. This is, to our knowledge, the first study that combined a hormonal signal and migratory restlessness. Our results consistently support the idea that corticosterone is involved in departure likelihood of migrants during stopover. Future studies should ascertain how corticosterone is up regulated in migrants that are ready to depart from stopover.submitted by: Thomas KlinnerWien, Univ. f\ufcr Bodenkultur, Masterarb., 2014Zsfassung in dt. Sprach

A quasi-experimental approach using telemetry to assess migration-strategy-specific differences in the decision-making processes at stopover

Abstract Background Migrant birds travel between their breeding areas and wintering grounds by alternating energetically and physiologically demanding flights with periods of rest and fuelling, so-called stopovers. An important intrinsic factor influencing the decision to resume migration is the amount of energy stores available for the next flight. Correlative studies with free-flying birds and experimental studies with caged birds have shown that the amount of energy stores affects the day-to-day, within-day and the directional decision of departure. The methodological advantages of both the correlative and experimental approach are combined when radio-tagging many individuals on the same day and subsequently determining the departure decisions at a high spatiotemporal resolution. Making use of such a quasi-experimental approach with an automated radio-tracking system at stopover, we studied the effect of energy stores on departure decisions and whether they vary between species of different migration strategies experiencing contrasting time constraints. For this, we chose a long-distance migrant, the common redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus), and a medium-distance migrant, the European robin (Erithacus rubecula), because the former has to travel at relatively higher speed to reach its wintering ground in a reasonable time at the expense of relatively higher energetic costs for travelling than the latter. Results Common redstarts with higher energy stores were more likely to resume migration than their conspecifics with lower energy stores, whereas this pattern was absent in the European robins. The amount of energy stores significantly affected the timing of departure within the day, with large energy stores yielding early departures in both species. Departure directions from the stopover site during the first night after capture were oriented towards the seasonally appropriate direction but were not affected by variation in energy stores. Conclusions We demonstrate the importance of variation in energy stores on the departure decisions and that it may affect species with different migration strategies dissimilarly in autumn. Nevertheless, knowledge of other intrinsic factors, such as feeding conditions, health status and physiological consequences of previous flights, is additionally required to better understand the departure decisions of migrants, as this is the key to providing an overall assessment of the decision-making process

Data from: Potential age differences in the migratory behaviour of a nocturnal songbird migrant during autumn and spring

In migratory songbirds, older individuals are thought to be more efficient migrants than younger individuals. Age-specific differences in migratory efficiency have been reported mainly in respect of arrival timing, energy stores, rate of energy accumulation, departure behaviour, and departure direction. Yet, these traits were rarely assessed simultaneously in a single species. We further lack information whether age-specific differences in behavioural traits present in autumn still manifest to the same degree in spring. Here we used the northern wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe), a long-distance nocturnal songbird migrant, and investigated age-specific differences in energy stores at capture (autumn: 1059 birds/spring: 803 birds), rate of energy accumulation (168/147), nocturnal departure timing (126/105), and departure direction (94/77) for both seasons. We found that in autumn, young northern wheatears departed significantly later in the night than older birds. This difference was not observed in spring. The resulting advance in nocturnal departure timing by young birds from autumn to spring may be due to learning based on experience gained during autumn, and/or to selective disappearance of those young individuals showing late departure times during autumn. We found no age-specific difference in any of the other migratory traits investigated. To get a better understanding of age effects in songbird migrants, we need to study the potential adjustments of migratory behaviour within the individual over its life time. By individually tracking songbirds throughout their lifetime, we could start estimating whether a certain migratory decision (fuelling, departure, orientation) translates into higher (or lower) fitness, and whether individuals adjust their migratory behaviour based on learning from “wrong decisions”

Stopover departure decisions in songbirds: do long-distance migrants depart earlier and more independently of weather conditions than medium-distance migrants?

Background: Songbirds following distinct migration strategies (e.g. long- vs. short- to medium-distance migrants) often differ in their speed of migration during autumn and, thus, are assumed to face different time constraints. During migration, most songbird species alternate migratory flights with stopover periods. Many of them restrict these migratory flights to the night, i.e., they are nocturnal migrants. At stopover, nocturnal migrants need to select a specific night (night-to-night decision) and time of night (within-night decision) to resume migration. These departure decisions, which largely determine the speed of migration, are jointly affected by a set of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, i.e., departure cues. Here we aim to assess whether the set of intrinsic and extrinsic factors and the magnitude of their respective effects on stopover departure decisions differs between nocturnally migrating songbird species, depending on their migration strategy and associated time constraints. Methods: We radio-tracked migrating Northern Wheatears (Oenanthe oenanthe; long-distance migrant), European robins (Erithacus rubecula) and Common Blackbirds (Turdus merula; both medium-distance migrants) during autumn stopover and analysed their night-to-night and within-night departure timing in relation to intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Results: Species generally differed in their departure timing on both temporal scales, with shortest stopovers and earliest nocturnal departures in the long-distance migrant. Some factors, such as day of year, fuel load, cloud cover and crosswind, had consistent effects on stopover departure decisions in all three species. However, species differed in the effects of tailwind assistance, change in atmospheric pressure and air temperature on their stopover departure decisions. Whereas night-to-night decisions were affected by these extrinsic factors in either both or one of the medium-distance migrants, such effects were not found in the long-distance migrant. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the general timing of departures in songbirds is affected by the species-specific migration strategy and associated time constraints. Further, they imply that the assessment and usage of specific extrinsic factors, i.e., weather conditions, as departure cues is adjusted based on this migration strategy, with the long-distance migrants being least selective at departure. Other intrinsic and extrinsic factors, however, seem to be used as departure cues independent of migration strategy

data nocturnal departure time and sun elevation

There are ten columns: 1. “dep.min.sunset”: This variable details the individual nocturnal departure timing in minutes after sunset. 2. “sunele.dep.2”: This variable details the sun’s elevation at the moment of the nocturnal departure in degrees below the horizon. 3. “Sex”: "Sex": This is a factor with two levels. "1" says that the bird was a male and "2" that it was a female. 4. "Age.ad": This is a factor with two levels, i.e., "young" and "old". In autumn, "young" means 1st calendar year bird and "old" means that the individual was older than "young". In spring, "young" means 2nd calendar year bird and "old" means that the individual was older than "young". 5. "subsp": This is a factor with two levels. "leu" says that the bird belonged to the leucorhoa subspecies of the northern wheatear and "oen" says that the bird belonged to the oenanthe subspecies of the northern wheatear. 6. “season”: This variable indicates whether the bird was caught in spring or autumn. 7. “energystores_release”: This is a numeric variable and it provides the individual energy stores at release, estimated as detailed in eqn. 2 of the paper. 8. “year”: This variable indicates the year in which the bird was caught. 9. “jd_arr”: This is the day of year of capture with 1 Jan is 1. 10. “rho.act.dep”: We converted departure direction (circular variable) into a measure of deviance between observed (radio-tracked) departure direction and seasonally appropriate migration direction which enabled the inclusion of directional information in subsequent multivariate analyses, cf. Müller et al. (2018, Journal of Animal Ecology, https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12821 ). This measure of deviance, the resultant vector length ρ (rho; rho of departure direction), was calculated using the “circ.summary” function of the R package “circular”, for details see corresponding paper. It ranges from 1 (no deviance between observed departure direction and seasonally appropriate migration direction) to 0 (deviance of 180°)

data departure direction

There are six columns: 1. “year”: This variable indicates the year in which the bird was caught. 2. “season”: This variable indicates whether the bird was caught in spring or autumn. 3. "subsp": This is a factor with two levels. "leu" says that the bird belonged to the leucorhoa subspecies of the northern wheatear and "oen" says that the bird belonged to the oenanthe subspecies of the northern wheatear. 4. "Age.ad": This is a factor with two levels, i.e., "young" and "old". In autumn, "young" means 1st calendar year bird and "old" means that the individual was older than "young". In spring, "young" means 2nd calendar year bird and "old" means that the individual was older than "young". 5. "Sex": This is a factor with two levels. "1" says that the bird was a male and "2" that it was a female. 6. “direction”: This is the departure direction in degree