Assignments of breeding season origin for pied flycatchers based on feather deuterium sampled in Ghana (see Tonra et al. for details).
A new paper out by Tonra and colleagues looks at whether incorporating different sources of error improves stable isotope geographic assignments. Surprisingly, one of their findings was that “neither year- nor site-specific methods improved assignment precision or accuracy.” The authors also present one of the first analyses of the relationship between individual and environmental annual variation in hydrogen isotopes. A great paper to read for those working with precipitation-derived stable isotopes!
