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Body Comp Description for NYCAS The body composition of Neotropical
passerines during migration at northern latitudes The birds collected by Project Safe Flight have been used to bolster our knowledge of avian body composition. By chemically extracting all the body fat from specimens, an average fat-free body mass can be determined for a particular species. Then a living bird can be weighed and the average fat-free body mass for its species can be subtracted from its total body mass to estimate the bird's mass of body fat. Calculations of percentage of body fat can be used to estimate potential flight ranges and make other assessments of energetic condition. PSF specimens have enhanced fat-free body mass data sets, which had previously been short on data from the Northeast. Linked below are two recent research articles that used PSF birds as data sources. Chad L. Seewagen (2008). An evaluation of condition indices and predictive models for noninvasive estimates of lipid mass of migrating Common Yellowthroats, Ovenbirds, and Swainson's Thrushes. Journal of Field Ornithology 79(1): 80-86.Chad L. Seewagen (2008). Lipid content of nearctic-neotropical migratory passerines killed during stopovers in a New York City Park. Northeastern Naturalist 15(1): 87-96. |
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