Towards Predictive Models of Bird Migration Schedules: Theoretical and EmpiricalBottlenecks

摘要

The relation of theory to experiment in biology has been an uneasy one. The work'theoretical' has generally had perjorative connotations, and the right to theorize was the reward for years of laboratory and field work. Take the archetypal wader, breeding on the arctic tundra, using intertidal mudflats in the temperate zone as a stopover site during migration and wintering on intertidal mudflats in the tropics. What will happen to the birds if some of their habitats are modified by man for exploitation, like reclamation of the intertidal mudflats or oil-drilling on the tundra. Desired answers would almost certainly include expected changes in the number and timing of birds using the affected areas, as well as changes in their pattern of mass gain. (Copyright (c) Netherlands Institute for Sea Research.)