WASHINGTON, D.C.- The predictability and scale of seasonal changes in a habitat help determine the distance migratory species move and whether the animals always travel together to the same place or independently to different locations, according to a paper published online in February in Global Ecology and Biogeography by the National Zoo’s Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute researchers and partners. The study’s findings have significant implications for land managers around the world working to conserve endangered species that migrate. “We knew that Mongolian gazelle in the Eastern Steppes migrate long distances, but when we put radio collars on them, we were surprised to discover that they go off individually in different directions,” said Thomas Mueller, a research associate at SCBI and lead author of the study. “Previously researchers had not paid much attention to how