Pareto front analysis of flight time and energy use in long-distance bird migration

摘要

Optimality models are frequently used in studies of long distance bird migration to help understand and predict migration routes, stopover strategies and fuelling behaviour in a spatially varying environment. These models typically evaluate bird behaviour by focusing on a single optimization currency, such as total migration time or energy-use, without explicitly considering trade-offs between the involved objectives. In this paper, we demonstrate that this classic single-objective approach downplaysthe importance of variability in bird behaviour. In the light of these considerations, we therefore propose to use a full multi-criteria optimization method to isolate the set of non-dominated, efficient or Pareto optimal solutions. Unlike single-objective optimization where there is only one combination of bird behaviour maximizing fitness, the Pareto solution set represents a range of optimal solutions to conflicting objectives. Our results demonstrate that this multi-objective approach provides important new ways of analyzing how environmental factors and behavioural constraints have driven the evolution of migratory behaviour.