Flying fast improves aerodynamic economy of heavier birds

Abstract

A paradox of avian long-distance migrations is that birds must greatly increase their body mass prior to departure, yet this is presumed to substantially increase their energy cost of flight. However, here we show that when homing pigeons flying in a flock are loaded with ventrally located weight, both their heart rate and estimated energy expenditure rise by a remarkably small amount. The net effect is that costs per unit time increase only slightly and per unit mass they decrease. We suggest that this is because these homing flights are relatively fast, and consequently flight costs associated with increases in body parasite drag dominate over those of weight support, leading to an improvement in mass-specific flight economy. We propose that the relatively small absolute aerodynamic penalty for carrying enlarged fuel stores and flight muscles during fast flight has helped to select for the evolution of long-distance migration.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Bishop, C.M. Halsey, L.G. Askew, G.N. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1010-4439
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Dates:	Published: 27 March 2024 Published (online): 27 March 2024 Accepted: 5 March 2024
Institution:	The University of Leeds
Academic Units:	The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biomedical Sciences (Leeds)
Funding Information:	Funder Grant number BBSRC (Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council) BB/P020933/1
Depositing User:	Symplectic Publications
Date Deposited:	16 Apr 2024 16:15
Last Modified:	16 Apr 2024 16:15
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Nature Research
Identification Number:	10.1038/s41598-024-56325-6
Related URLs:	PubMed URL
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:211522

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Flying fast improves aerodynamic economy of heavier birds

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