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Volume 50, No. 2

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Migrational movements and seasonal home ranges of Greater Crested Terns Thalasseus bergii breeding in the South China Sea


Authors

XIN YU1,2, XIAO GUO3,4, YANZHU JI1, SHIYU TANG1,2, CHENXI JIA1*, & FUMIN LEI1,2,5*
1Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China *(jiacx@ioz.ac.cn & leifm@ioz.ac.cn)
2College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
3CAS Key Laboratory for Computational Astrophysics, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
4School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
5Center for Excellence in Animal Evolution and Genetics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China

Citation

YU, X., GUO, X., JI, Y., TANG, S., JIA, C. & LEI, F. 2022. Migrational movements and seasonal home ranges of Greater Crested Terns Thalasseus bergii breeding in the South China Sea. Marine Ornithology 50: 245 - 251

Received 18 April 2022, accepted 11 August 2022

Date Published: 2022/10/15
Date Online: 2022/09/22
Key words: fidelity, GPS/GSM tracking, Greater Crested Tern, home range, migration, Thalasseus bergii

Abstract

The migratory pathways of Greater Crested Terns Thalasseus bergii in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway are poorly known. We tracked three birds by deploying GPS/GSM transmitters in September 2018, one for 23 months, one for 16 months, and one for 1.5 months. These tracks included complete fall migration routes for all three individuals and partial spring migration routes for two individuals between a breeding area in the Xisha Archipelago (South China Sea) and two wintering areas, one in the western Philippine Archipelago and the other in the western Celebes Sea. We observed that the two fully tracked terns had large seasonal home ranges and strong fidelity to wintering grounds and stopover sites during spring migration.

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