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Full-Text Articles in Animal Sciences
The Effect Of Weather During Rearing On Morphometric Traits Of Juvenile Cliff Swallows, Erin A. Roche, Mary Bomberger Brown, Charles R. Brown
The Effect Of Weather During Rearing On Morphometric Traits Of Juvenile Cliff Swallows, Erin A. Roche, Mary Bomberger Brown, Charles R. Brown
School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications
Episodes of food deprivation may change how nestling birds allocate energy to the growth of skeletal and feather morphological traits during development. Cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) are colonial, insectivorous birds that regularly experience brief periods of severe weather–induced food deprivation during the nesting season which may affect offspring development. We investigated how annual variation in timing of rearing and weather were associated with length of wing and tail, skeletal traits, and body mass in juvenile cliff swallows reared in southwestern Nebraska during 2001–2006. As predicted under conditions of food deprivation, nestling skeletal and feather measurements were generally smaller …
Fluctuating Viability Selection On Morphology Of Cliff Swallows Is Driven By Climate, Charles R. Brown, Mary Bomberger Brown, Erin A. Roche
Fluctuating Viability Selection On Morphology Of Cliff Swallows Is Driven By Climate, Charles R. Brown, Mary Bomberger Brown, Erin A. Roche
School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications
The extent to which fluctuating selection can maintain evolutionary stasis in most populations remains an unresolved question in evolutionary biology. Climate has been hypothesized to drive reversals in the direction of selection among different time periods and may also be responsible for intense episodic selection caused by rare weather events. We measured viability selection associated with morphological traits in cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) in western Nebraska, USA, over a 14-year period following a rare climatic event. We used mark-recapture to estimate the annual apparent survival of over 26 000 individuals whose wing, tail, tarsus, and bill had been …