{"id":5716,"date":"2017-07-06T16:14:44","date_gmt":"2017-07-06T20:14:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=5716"},"modified":"2017-07-06T16:14:44","modified_gmt":"2017-07-06T20:14:44","slug":"special-carbon-compounds-in-bobolink-bird-feathers-contain-information-about-their-diet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/special-carbon-compounds-in-bobolink-bird-feathers-contain-information-about-their-diet\/","title":{"rendered":"Special carbon compounds in Bobolink bird feathers contain information about their diet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bobolinks

Bobolinks molt while in South America for the winter, and the new feathers they grow there reflect their diet.
(Image by R.M. Jensen)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

You are what you eat; and in the case of a tiny migratory grassland bird, the Bobolink, their contain the secrets to\u00a0what they eat. Information stored within the Bobolink’s plumage can also help with the efforts to protect the declining species. Researchers have found that carbon compounds from the elusive winter diet\u2014what the Bobolink eats away from the summer breeding grounds\u2014leave hints as to the types of plants the birds consume while growing their feathers during the winter molt. Study authors have collected and analyzed feather samples from different regions where the Bobolinks winter\u00a0as well as the breeding regions. Their findings revealed potential dangers\u2014such as low nutritional quality of certain foods and high pesticide concentration\u2014that need to be addressed in the species’ conservation efforts.<\/p>\n

Authors:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rosalind B. Renfrew, Jason M. Hill, Daniel H. Kim, Christopher Romanek, and Noah G. Perlut<\/p>\n

Corresponding author:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rosalind Renfrew, Vermont Center for Ecostudies, Email: rrenfrew@vtecostudies.org<\/p>\n

Original paper <\/a>published in The Auk: Ornithological Advances<\/em>\u00a0on June 21, 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You are what you eat; and in the case of a tiny migratory grassland bird, the Bobolink, their contain the secrets to\u00a0what they eat. Information stored within the Bobolink’s plumage can also help with the efforts to protect the declining species. Researchers have found that carbon compounds from the elusive winter diet\u2014what the Bobolink eats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[114,3056,2750,3057],"class_list":["post-5716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-birds","tag-bobolinks","tag-ornithology","tag-winter-diet"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/bobolink.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-1uc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5716"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5718,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5716\/revisions\/5718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}