{"id":5203,"date":"2016-12-14T17:25:51","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T22:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=5203"},"modified":"2016-12-14T17:25:51","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T22:25:51","slug":"what-it-takes-to-fly-sparrows-muscles-change-to-prepare-for-migration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/what-it-takes-to-fly-sparrows-muscles-change-to-prepare-for-migration\/","title":{"rendered":"What it takes to fly: Sparrows&#8217; muscles change to prepare for migration <img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5204\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5204\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5204\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/unnamed-6.jpg\" alt=\"White-crowned sparrow, or Zonotrichia leucophrys gambelii (Image by Seabamirum via Flickr)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/unnamed-6.jpg 640w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/unnamed-6-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-5204\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">White-crowned sparrow, or <em>Zonotrichia leucophrys gambelii (Image by <a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/5BKahd\">Seabamirum via Flickr<\/a>)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>Evolution might give some birds a much-needed boost for long-distance migrations, a new study suggests. Every year in spring, white-crowned sparrows complete a long journey from their wintering spots to summer breeding grounds. Researchers analyzed a chain of proteins in the sparrows&#8217; muscles during wintering and after the arrival to the late-spring breeding spot. Their findings suggest that the birds remodel the muscles necessary for flight just before the long migration, making those muscles more efficient. These results are a fascinating demonstration of the adaptive nature of these migratory birds.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Authors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Brandy P. Velten, Kenneth C. Welch, Marilyn Ramenofsky<\/p>\n<p><strong>Corresponding author:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Brandy Velten, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Toronto at Scarborough<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org\/content\/3\/11\/160775\" target=\"_blank\">Original paper<\/a> published in <em>Royal Society Open Science<\/em> on November 30, 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Evolution might give some birds a much-needed boost for long-distance migrations, a new study suggests. Every year in spring, white-crowned sparrows complete a long journey from their wintering spots to summer breeding grounds. Researchers analyzed a chain of proteins in the sparrows&#8217; muscles during wintering and after the arrival to the late-spring breeding spot. Their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5204,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1444,2750,2774],"class_list":["post-5203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-migration","tag-ornithology","tag-white-crowned-sparrow"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/unnamed-6.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-1lV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5205,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5203\/revisions\/5205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}