Practical method of estimating fresh mass of Adélie penguin eggs

International audience Fresh egg mass (FEM) is an important measure as it relates to many allometric relationships. Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) eggs, as other bird eggs, begin to lose weight as soon as they are laid but their linear dimensions remain constant. The FEM of an Adélie penguin�...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polar Biology
Main Authors: Ancel, André, Beaulieu, Michaël
Other Authors: Département Ecologie, Physiologie et Ethologie (DEPE-IPHC), Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien (IPHC), Université Louis Pasteur - Strasbourg I-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Louis Pasteur - Strasbourg I-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2009
Subjects:
fresh egg mass
allometric relationship
Pygoscelis adeliae
antarctica
envir
geo
Antarc*
Antarctica
Polar Biology
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-009-0644-z
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00384674
Description
Summary:International audience Fresh egg mass (FEM) is an important measure as it relates to many allometric relationships. Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) eggs, as other bird eggs, begin to lose weight as soon as they are laid but their linear dimensions remain constant. The FEM of an Adélie penguin's egg can be estimated within 1% from the relationship FEM = 0.564 x LW2, where L is the length and W is the width. The constant 0.564 was calculated by weighing the eggs after replacing the air cell with water. The calculated mean egg mass agrees well with that obtained by weighing eggs after replacement of the air cell with water (r2 = 0.996). This method of estimating FEM based on linear measurements is easily applicable in the field.

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