How the effects of latitude on daylight availability may have influenced the evolution of migration and photoperiodism

Abstract

Date and latitude interact to determine photoperiod, the daily period of daylight. This interaction has important implications for latitudinal migrants for whom daylight may be a resource or for whom photoperiod regulates annual transitions in life-history stages (i.e. birds). Using an established formula, we developed user-interactive, animated models that enable the visualization of how latitude and date determine photoperiod for latitudinal migrants. We also calculated the photoperiodic schedules for a broad range of hypothetical migratory programmes and real migratory programmes newly available through the proliferation of citizen-science data. This enabled us to infer the limitations some migratory programmes place on mechanisms for photoperiodic regulation of annual breeding. In the vast majority of cases, the act of migrating elevates annual daylight exposure. This raises the hypothesis that daylight availability selects for latitudinal migration, potentially contributing to its evolution in animals such as diurnal birds with limited time during the spring and summer to feed young. However, photoperiodic mechanisms regulating annual cycles could constrain the evolution of such migrations, depending on how they affect photoperiodic schedules. Most migratory programmes are consistent with known mechanisms of avian photoperiodism, but the range of feasible mechanisms declines for transequatorial migrants, which experience semi-annual, 180°-phase-shifts in their photoperiodic cycles. Understanding photoperiodic constraints on migration is particularly important in this age of changing latitudinal distributions and phenologies driven by climate change. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.