- Key People:
- George Gaylord Simpson
- Jack Miner
The origins of migration remain in the realm of pure conjecture; neither observation nor experiment has resolved the matter. The explanation, however, must be related to geographical and climatological factors that have prevailed since the Neogene Period, which ended some 2,600,000 years ago. The great Quaternary ice ages, which came later, were very important in altering the distribution of animals over a large part of the world, but migrations occurred long before.
Migration, as it is now known among modern birds and mammals, probably appeared gradually by stages. Some animals changed their habitat only slightly, never leaving the same general region. The movements of other animals were more erratic, their dispersal being oriented toward the most favourable places. Such movements are the first stages of true migration—a phenomenon characterized by elaborate mechanisms—which gradually acquired stability through natural selection. At first, many populations must have perished rather than attempt to flee from unfavourable conditions. Only a fraction of such populations probably sought more favourable conditions elsewhere, but natural selection favoured the “migrants,” and migratory tendencies were retained.
In some cases, original habitats were in present-day wintering areas, and animals developed a tendency to leave in spring in order to breed in other territories. Seasonal changes of weather and food supply in these newly settled regions forced the animals to migrate in fall, and they thus retreated to their former range. Among birds nesting in the Northern Hemisphere, hummingbirds, tyrant flycatchers, tanagers, orioles, bee-eaters, and swifts have distinct tropical affinities; in recent geological times these birds gradually spread northward as glacial ice receded and the continent became warmer. Other birds, such as plover, ducks, and geese, originally lived in what is now their breeding area. Gradual climatic changes forced them to spend their winters in regions far to the south. Migrations thus appear to be the consequence of invasions or emigrations, during which animals settle in new areas during a segment of the annual cycle.
Migratory birds use the routes by which their ancestors first invaded new regions after the glacial recession. The yellow wagtail (Motacilla flava) and the wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe) settled in Alaska; they migrate annually into other parts of the Western Hemisphere but spend their winters in the warm regions of southeastern Asia and even Africa, probably following the migratory route of their ancestors. A typically North American species, the gray-cheeked thrush (Hylocichla minima), which has extended its breeding area to northeastern Siberia, returns to spend the winter in the central regions of South America.