Nature Communications (May 2020)

Ecological drivers of global gradients in avian dispersal inferred from wing morphology

  • Catherine Sheard,
  • Montague H. C. Neate-Clegg,
  • Nico Alioravainen,
  • Samuel E. I. Jones,
  • Claire Vincent,
  • Hannah E. A. MacGregor,
  • Tom P. Bregman,
  • Santiago Claramunt,
  • Joseph A. Tobias

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16313-6
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

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In birds, the hand-wing index is a morphological trait that can be used as a proxy for flight efficiency. Here the authors examine variation of hand-wing index in over 10,000 bird species, finding that it is higher in migratory and non-territorial species, and lower in the tropics.