Patterns of Growth in Nestling Short-tailed Shearwaters Puffinus tenuirostris

Abstract

Patterns of growth in nestling Short-tailed Shearwaters Puffinus tenuirostris were studied on Great Dog Island in Bass Strait, Tasmania, early in 1992. The logistic growth model fitted the data better than the Gompertz or von Bertalanffy models. The lengths of the head, wing and tarsus were more useful measures of growth than weight (too variable) or beak depth (too difficult to measure). Differences in the patterns of growth of the tarsus, wing and beak are discussed in terms of their adaptive value to the growing young.