About This Project

Migrating is strenuous for birds. Therefore, they need to find energy-saving strategies, such as flying in a V-formation. In a V-formation, birds take advantage of the up-wash produced by the preceding bird. Yet, the trailing bird does not get any benefit, hence birds switch their positions inside the flight formation. I hypothesize that every individual contributes to the flying effort and hence there is a pattern in the switches, which may be also affected by social relationships.

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What is the context of this research?

Previous studies have proposed that flying in a V-shaped formation may be an energy-saving strategy. In a V-formation, a trailing bird can benefit from the up-wash produced by a preceding bird by flying in its wake. However, the leading bird does not experience any benefit. Indeed, birds change their positions inside the formation, so eventually every individual could take advantage of the in-wake flying. This constitutes a cooperation dilemma and raises some questions: what is the pattern of position switches inside the formation? How does this cooperation work? Do social relationships among individuals play a role?

The human-led migration by Waldrappteam offers a unique opportunity to study these aspects of V-formation during migration flight.

What is the significance of this project?

Migration constitutes a great effort for birds, with incredibly high energetic costs and an consequent increase in mortality rates. Therefore, saving as much energy as possible during migration flights could make the difference between survival and death. V-formation represents one way to save energy while flying. Due to the development of more advanced technologies, we can now investigate how the birds achieve this. Moreover, it is possible to study if all the individuals benefit of the formation at the same level and if sociality among individuals plays a role.

Equipping all the birds of a flock with high-precision GNSS loggers will allow to have a better understanding of this processes.

Indeed, the human-led migration by Waldrappteam is an unique occasion to conduct this study.

What are the goals of the project?

I will use the funds to buy custom-made high-precision GNSS loggers. These loggers are able to collect raw carrier-phase data from several satellite constellations. This data allows me to calculate the position of the birds in the V-formation with cm-level accuracy. My goal is to equip all the birds taking part to the migration with one of these loggers to study: the extent to which the birds use the V-formation, the pattern of switches among individuals inside the formation and the effect of social relationships among individuals on the pattern and on the V-formation. My hypothesis is that V-formation is largely used during migration and that al the individual contribute to the flying effort. Moreover, social relationship may have a role in establishing the pattern of swithches.