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Article: Research from J.E. Mckay and co-researchers in the area of wildlife research published.(Report)
- Article from:
- Ecology, Environment & Conservation
- Article date:
- November 20, 2009
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 NewsRX. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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"Altricial nestlings encase excrement in fecal sacs that parents remove by either ingesting them or transporting them away from the nest. Ingestion may allow energetically or nutritionally deprived parents to recapture energy or nutrients that might be lost because of nestlings' inefficient digestion (the ''parental-nutrition hypothesis''), but ingestion may also permit parents to avoid flights from the nest that interfere with parental care (e.g., brooding young; the ''economic-disposal hypothesis'')," scientists in the United States report.
"We used a hypothetico-deductive approach to test the two hypotheses' ability to account for fecal-sac ingestion by the ...