Photoperiodic Supervision and Adaptability in Avian System

Abstract

Photoperiodism is a prime selective force and in response to photoperiod and other supplementary environmental cues, birds exhibitbehavioral and physiological responses. Birds have developed specialized temporal programming for the adaptation to their activities during 24-h of periodicity. To maintain the successful survival of progeny, they use both environmental cues and endogenous cycles in the suitable time window of the year. These timing mechanisms commonly involve an internal molecular oscillator which we called as ‘clock’ (s) that is ‘entrained’ to the environmental cycle. They express their endogenous cycles in physiology and behavior by receptor mechanisms responding to appropriate environmental signals (‘Zeitgeber’, i.e. time-giver) that allow anticipation of the seasons. Birds can respond to environmental stimuli in 3 key ways: disperse, adjust through phenotypic plasticity, or adapt through genetic changes. In this article, we discussed thesignificance of ecological factors affecting bird’s physiology and behavior.Furthermore, the migratory songbird’s performancealong with downstream proceedingsabout these factors and their adaptive approaches towards nature’scircuitry