Reconstructing the historical wintering destinations of seabirds using stable isotope analyses of museum specimens
William F. Mills·Stuart Black·Richard A. Phillips·Gayatri Ramakrishnan·Ramandeep Nijjar·Andrés E. Ibañez·Rona A. R. McGill·Lara M. Morales·Diego Montalti·Juliette Waterman
Abstract Stable isotope analyses of museum specimens provide an opportunity to examine long-term changes in avian migration strategies. Here, we determined stable isotopes of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) in body feathers (reflecting diet during the non-breeding period) sampled from living birds and historical museum specimens to investigate whether brown skuas Stercorarius antarcticus lonnbergi from South Georgia and the South Shetland Islands changed their migration strategies during the p