Publication Date:
2015-01-17
Description:
The physiological and biomechanical requirements of flight at high altitude have been the subject of much interest. Here, we uncover a steep relation between heart rate and wingbeat frequency (raised to the exponent 3.5) and estimated metabolic power and wingbeat frequency (exponent 7) of migratory bar-headed geese. Flight costs increase more rapidly than anticipated as air density declines, which overturns prevailing expectations that this species should maintain high-altitude flight when traversing the Himalayas. Instead, a "roller coaster" strategy, of tracking the underlying terrain and discarding large altitude gains only to recoup them later in the flight with occasional benefits from orographic lift, is shown to be energetically advantageous for flights over the Himalayas.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Bishop, C M -- Spivey, R J -- Hawkes, L A -- Batbayar, N -- Chua, B -- Frappell, P B -- Milsom, W K -- Natsagdorj, T -- Newman, S H -- Scott, G R -- Takekawa, J Y -- Wikelski, M -- Butler, P J -- BB/FO15615/1/Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council/United Kingdom -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2015 Jan 16;347(6219):250-4. doi: 10.1126/science.1258732.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉School of Biological Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, Gwynedd, UK. ; School of Biological Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, Gwynedd, UK. c.bishop@bangor.ac.uk l.hawkes@exeter.ac.uk. ; Wildlife Science and Conservation Center of Mongolia, Ulaanbataar, Mongolia. ; Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. ; Office of the Dean of Graduate Research, University of Tasmania, Tasmania, Australia. ; Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulaanbataar, Mongolia. ; Emergency Prevention System(EMPRES) Wildlife and Ecology Unit, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, Italy. ; Department of Biology, McMaster University, Ontario, Ontario, Canada. ; San Francisco Bay Estuary Field Station, Western Ecological Research Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Vallejo, CA 94592 USA. ; Max Planck Institut fur Ornithologie, Radolfzell, Germany. Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany. ; School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25593180" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
*Altitude
;
*Animal Migration
;
Animals
;
Biomechanical Phenomena
;
Body Temperature
;
Body Weight
;
*Energy Metabolism
;
Flight, Animal/*physiology
;
Geese/*physiology
;
Heart Rate
;
Tibet
;
Wings, Animal/*physiology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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