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- Title
COMBINING ISOTOPIC AND GENETIC MARKERS TO IDENTIFY BREEDING ORIGINS OF MIGRANT BIRDS.
- Authors
Kelly, Jeffrey E.; Ruegg, Kristen C.; Smith, Thomas B.
- Abstract
This article discusses combining isotopic and genetic markers to identify breeding origins of migrant birds. Animals that migrate long distances typically spend the majority of their lives away from their breeding sites. An open question in the ecology of migrant species is how events that occur during nonreproductive phases, which generally occur away from the breeding region, may affect productivity and survival on breeding grounds and vice versa. A successful migratory life history depends on an organism's ability to find suitable habitat in all phases of the migratory cycle. The primary metric used has been sub-specific variation in coloration and meristic characters. Although a great deal of what researchers know about migratory patterns has come from such studies, these studies rarely provide sufficient geographic resolution to allow assignment of nonbreeding animals to specific breeding sites. This analysis is the first demonstration that combining genetic and isotopic data allows the correct classification of three out of every four individual Nearctic-Neotropical migratory breeding birds of unknown origin to site-specific breeding locations.
- Subjects
BIRDS; GENETIC markers; BIOMARKERS; BREEDING; ENVIRONMENTAL sciences; HABITATS
- Publication
Ecological Applications, 2005, Vol 15, Issue 5, p1487
- ISSN
1051-0761
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1890/04-1704