European open habitats have experienced rapid declines in bird and mammal species over the last decades, largely due to agricultural intensification. While natural predators have received considerable attention, impacts of abundant free-ranging cats ( Felis catus) remain poorly studied. Diet analyses are essential for assessing population impacts, yet traditional methods often lack taxonomic resolution. DNA metabarcoding overc...

In this paper, we extend our understanding of the migration of Black-tailed Godwits ( Limosa limosa limosa ) by describing: (1) the orientation and geographic locations of individual migratory routes and (2) the spatial distribution of godwits across seasons and years. We accomplish this using satellite-tracking data from 36 adult godwits breeding in the 200-ha Haanmeer polder in The Netherlands, from 2015 to 2018. During both...

Long‐distance migratory flights are predicted to be associated with higher mortality rates when individuals encounter adverse weather conditions. However, directly connecting environmental conditions experienced in‐flight with the survival of migrants has proven difficult. We studied how the in‐flight mortality of 53 satellite‐tagged Black‐tailed Godwits ( Limosa limosa limosa ) during 132 crossings of the Sahara Desert, a maj...

In seasonal environments, increasing spring temperatures lead many taxa to advance the timing of reproduction. Species that do not may suffer lower fitness. We investigated why black‐tailed godwits ( Limosa limosa limosa ), a ground‐breeding agricultural grassland shorebird, have not advanced timing of reproduction during the last three decades in the face of climate change and human‐induced habitat degradation. We used data f...

Many organisms adjust their reproductive phenology in response to climate change, but phenological sensitivity to temperature may vary between species. For example, resident and migratory birds have vastly different annual cycles, which can cause differential temperature sensitivity at the breeding grounds, and may affect competitive dynamics. Currently, however, adjustment to climate change in resident and migratory birds hav...

Heritable personality variation is subject to fluctuating selection in many animal taxa; a major unresolved question is why this is the case. A parsimonious explanation must involve a general ecological process: a likely candidate is the omnipresent spatiotemporal variation in conspecific density. We tested whether spatiotemporal variation in density within and among nest box plots of great tits ( Parus major ) predicted varia...

The pied flycatcher is one of the most phenotypically variable bird species in Europe. The geographic variation in phenotypes has often been attributed to spatial variation in selection regimes that is associated with the presence or absence of the congeneric collared flycatcher. Spatial variation in phenotypes could however also be generated by spatially restricted gene flow and genetic drift. We examined the genetic populati...

Global climate change has led to warmer winters in NW Europe, shortening the distance between suitable overwintering areas and the breeding areas of many bird species. Here we show that winter recovery distances have decreased over the past seven decades, for birds ringed during the breeding season in the Netherlands between 1932 and 2004. Of the 24 species included in the analysis, we found in 12 a significant decrease of the...

Temporal variation in survival, fecundity, and dispersal rates is associated with density‐dependent and density‐independent processes. Stable natural populations are expected to be regulated by density‐dependent factors. However, detecting this by investigating natural variation in density is difficult because density‐dependent and independent factors affecting population dynamics may covary. Therefore, experiments are needed...

The ultimate reason why birds should advance their phenology in response to climate change is to match the shifting phenology of underlying levels of the food chain. In a seasonal environment, the timing of food abundance is one of the crucial factors to which birds should adapt their timing of reproduction. They can do this by shifting egg‐laying date (LD), and also by changing other life‐history characters that affect the pe...