Feather deuterium as an indicator of age‐class in the Pectoral Sandpiper Calidris melanotos

We measured deuterium isotope ratios (δ D f ) in primary feathers to distinguish first‐year from older Pectoral Sandpipers Calidris melanotos captured in Barrow, Alaska, during the breeding season. δ D f showed a distinct bimodal distribution, and model‐based clustering placed the δ D f values into...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ibis
Main Authors: Yohannes, Elizabeth, Lee, Raymond W., Valcu, Mihai, Kempenaers, Bart
Other Authors: Dawson, Alistair
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2012
Subjects:
Arctic
Barrow
Alaska
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1474-919x.2012.01245.x
https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1474-919X.2012.01245.x
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1474-919X.2012.01245.x
Description
Summary:We measured deuterium isotope ratios (δ D f ) in primary feathers to distinguish first‐year from older Pectoral Sandpipers Calidris melanotos captured in Barrow, Alaska, during the breeding season. δ D f showed a distinct bimodal distribution, and model‐based clustering placed the δ D f values into two non‐overlapping groups. More negative δ D f corresponded to Arctic areas, probably identifying first‐year birds with Arctic‐grown juvenile feathers retained from the previous year. The more positive values corresponded to lower latitudes, possibly identifying older birds that grew their feathers at non‐Arctic latitudes.

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