Journal
WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN
Volume 40, Issue 3, Pages 456-463Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1002/wsb.667
Keywords
body composition; body condition; common eider; deuterium dilution; Somateria mollissima
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Funding
- Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, Division of Fish and Wildlife
- University of Rhode Island
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Region 5 Avian Health and Disease Program
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We conducted the first validation of the deuterium dilution method as a nonlethal technique for estimating body composition of a sea duck. We captured male (n=11) and female (n=8) American common eiders (Somateria mollissima dresseri) during winters of 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 in southern New England, USA, and compared their directly measured body composition with that estimated using deuterium-dilution. The best-supported linear regression models predicted wet lean and fat mass with, on average, 2.0% and 20.2% relative errors, respectively. The deuterium dilution method provides field biologists and managers with a nonlethal method for accurately estimating body composition of common eider during winter. The method is broadly applicable to other migratory birds and can be used to evaluate the effects of ecological and anthropogenic drivers on body composition dynamics. (c) 2016 The Wildlife Society.
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