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- Title
Bill length: a reliable method for sexing Purple Sandpipers.
- Authors
Hallgrimsson, Gunnar Thor; Palsson, Snaebjörn; Summers, Ron W.
- Abstract
Purple Sandpipers ( Calidris maritima) are sexually dimorphic, with females larger than males. We tested the reliability of using bill length to sex individuals and estimate the sex ratio at a stopover site in Iceland in May 2003 and 2005. Feather samples from 65 of 324 captured birds were used for molecular sexing, and generalized linear models (GLMs) were used to discriminate the sexes from body measurements of the molecularly sexed birds. About 3% of the 324 individuals were misclassified by the Harding-Cassie method, and the proportion of males was 0.657 compared to 0.656 according to the best GLM. Our results showed that the reliability of determining the sex and sex ratio of Purple Sandpipers using a Harding-Cassie plot of bill length measurements was high, but that reliability was improved by including other variables in a GLM. The estimate of an uneven sex ratio in the population we studied was not due to a systematic error, and supports the conclusion of earlier studies that Purple Sandpipers exhibit an uneven sex ratio in favor of males.
- Subjects
POULTRY sexing; SANDPIPERS; SCOLOPACIDAE; BARTRAMIA; CALIDRIS; LIMICOLA
- Publication
Journal of Field Ornithology, 2008, Vol 79, Issue 1, p87
- ISSN
0273-8570
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1557-9263.2008.00148.x