Is mass loss in Brünnich’s guillemots Uria lomvia an adaptation for improved flight performance or improved dive performance?

• Main Authors: Kyle H. Elliott, Shoshanah R. Jacobs, Julian Ringrose, Anthony J. Gaston, Gail K. Davoren, K. H. Elliott (correspondence, G. K. Davoren
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: Coats Island; Nunavut; Uria lomvia; uria
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.579.1966; http://play.psych.mun.ca/~mont/pdfs/brunnichs.PDF

Breeding Brünnich’s guillemots Uria lomvia show stepwise mass loss at the time of hatch. This mass loss has usually been explained as an adaptation to reduce the cost of flight during the chick-rearing period because flight time increases during that period. It is possible, however, that mass loss...