Body mass and latitude both correlate with primary moult duration in shorebirds

Abstract

We investigated the effects of body mass and latitude on primary moult duration from published data of migrating shorebirds that moult exclusively on the wintering grounds. Non-phylogenetic and phylogenetic models demonstrated that body mass and latitude correlate with moult duration in a non-additive way: the models predict different latitudinal relationships for smaller and larger shorebirds, and in the northern hemisphere, primary moult duration increased allometrically with body mass (exponent = 0.17), whereas in the southern hemisphere, primary moult duration was not correlated with body mass. If birds optimize feather quality and if slower moult yields sturdier feathers, the fast primary moult of northerly wintering shorebirds indicates additional selection pressures at work.