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Science 11 August 2006:
Vol. 313. no. 5788, pp. 794 - 796
DOI: 10.1126/science.1127272
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Perspective

How and Why Do Insects Migrate?

Richard A. Holland,1,3 Martin Wikelski,1* David S. Wilcove1,2

Countless numbers of insects migrate within and between continents every year, and yet we know very little about the ultimate reasons and proximate mechanisms that would explain these mass movements. Here we suggest that perhaps the most important reason for insects to migrate is to hedge their reproductive bets. By spreading their breeding efforts in space and time, insects distribute their offspring over a range of environmental conditions. We show how the study of individual long-distance movements of insects may contribute to a better understanding of migration. In the future, advances in tracking methods may enable the global surveillance of large insects such as desert locusts.

1 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton NJ 08544, USA.
2 Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Princeton NJ 08544, USA.
3 Institute for Integrative and Comparative Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: wikelski{at}princeton.edu

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Integr. Comp. Biol. 48, 1-11
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