Meeting Abstract

P1.108  Saturday, Jan. 4 15:30  Intraspecific variation in body feather structure in a globally-distributed bird CERVINO, S.*; BUTLER, L. K.; The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ; The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ steccer@gmail.com

Ecogeographic rules describe general patterns of intra-specific variation in animal traits such as body size, limb size, and pigmentation. Despite the important functions of body feathers in the lives of birds, ecogeographic patterns in macro-structural properties of body feathers have received little attention. We examined global geographic variation in body feather morphology of the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), a small-bodied songbird with an historic range in the Palearctic and a modern range that spans human-dominated habitats around the planet. Five feather characteristics—barb count, barb angle, tangential packing, barb length, and barbule count—were measured on the downy and pennaceous parts of ventral body feathers of specimens from six locations: the British Isles, Morocco, and Mauritius (Palearctic/Afrotropic), and Kansas, Texas, and Hawaii (Nearctic/Oceania). Sample variance was attributed to four factors: location, sex, individual, and feather within individual. ANOVA revealed significant differences between males and females for barb count and barb angle, and between locations for barb count, barb length, tangential packing, and barbule count. Additionally, Palearctic/Afrotropic populations differed in multiple ways from Nearctic/Oceania populations. These results provide evidence that the intra-specific variation in body feather morphology in House Sparrows depends on sex, environment, and evolutionary history.