EEB Thursday Seminar Series - There and back again: Philopatry, global change, and the evolution of seasonal migration

Seminar summary: Bird migration is one of our world’s most celebrated natural wonders. But how and why has migration evolved, and what influence does it have on the ecology and evolution of migratory species? Ben will discuss research that his lab has been conducting on the evolutionary dynamics of bird migration. This work highlights seasonal migration as an adaptive strategy for site fidelity, challenging traditional views of migration as a dispersal strategy for exploring new territories. The work further reveals migratory distance as a fundamental axis of the slow-fast continuum of life history that predicts the balance of survival and reproduction, and leads to enhanced demographic stability and genetic diversity over evolutionary timescales.