Influences of Morphology and Behavior on Wing-molt Strategies in Seabirds

By Eli S. Bridge. Marine Ornithology, 2006

114 citations recorded by the source corpus.

INTRODUCTION A basic determinant of fitness entails the allocation of resources among various activities involved in survival and reproduction. Competition among these activities for limited resources such as time or energy gives rise to life-history tradeoffs, wherein investment in one activity occurs only at the expense of another. Two such activities that play an important role in all avian life histories are breeding and molt. Migration may introduce a third factor into this basic model of the avian life cycle. Interspecific variation in characteristics such as clutch size, migratory distance and molt strategy reflects different ways of negotiating these major life-history trade-offs. In this study, I review the literature available on molt for several major groups of seabirds to examine certain lifehistory and morphologic characteristics that appear to influence the evolution of the pattern, duration and timing of molt.

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Citations in the corpus

Free as a bird? Activity patterns of albatrosses during the nonbreeding period (2010, background): “…also spend greater proportions of time on the water surface during moult to reduce time and therefore energy spent in flight, which is a costly activity, and/or because flight itself is impaired by reduced efficiency or control, with the latter potentially increasing risk of injury (Bridge 2006).”
Causes and consequences of individual variability and specialization in foraging and migration strategies of seabirds (2017, background): “Seabirds generally, but not always, moult in the nonbreeding period to avoid overlap with other energetically de manding processes, such as reproduction or migration (Bridge 2006, Catry et al. 2013b).”
Combination of At-Sea Activity, Geolocation and Feather Stable Isotopes Documents Where and When Seabirds Molt (2016, background): “Variations in the intensity , duration and timing of the transient increase in time spent on water can be expected , especially in relationships with different molt patterns and wing - molt durations ( Bridge , 2006 ) .”
Use of stable isotopes to quantify seasonal changes of trophic niche and levels of population and individual specialisation in seabirds (2010, background): “…of adult feathers is a powerful tool to investigate the poorly known inter-nesting foraging habitats and diets of seabirds (Cherel et al. 2006, Hedd & Montevecchi 2006, Gladbach et al. 2007), because the adult moult occurs primarily during the non-breeding period (Warham 1990, 1996, Bridge 2006).”
Using carbon and nitrogen isotopic values of body feathers to infer inter- and intra-individual variations of seabird feeding ecology during moult (2009, background): “Since feather keratin is metabolically inert after synthesis, the isotopic composition of feathers reXects diet during moult (Hobson and Clark 1992; Bearhop et al. 2002), which occurs primarily during the non-breeding period (Warham 1990, 1996; Bridge 2006).”