A study describes the migratory divide towards the Pacific Ocean and the Arabian Sea of red-neck phalarope population

When winter comes, populations of red-neck phalarope from the Western Palearctic migrate to two different destinations –the Pacific Ocean or the Arabian Sea- following an exceptional migratory divide strategy which has never been described in this geographical area. A part of these bird populations –which breed in Greenland, Island and the British Islands- cross more than 10,000 kilometres to reach the Pacific Ocean, while populations in Scandinavia and Russia go to the Arabian Sea in the Indian Ocean, more than 6,000 kilometres away from their breeding areas.

This migratory behaviour is now described for the first time in an article published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution –in which the researchers Raül Ramos and Jacob González-Solís, from the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute of the UB (IRBio) take part.

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