Article

안정성 동위원소 분석을 통한 떼까마귀 월동 개체군의 번식지 추정

최창용1, 남현영2
Chang-Yong CHOI1, Hyun-Young NAM2
Author Information & Copyright
1동아시아-대양주 철새이동경로 파트너십 사무국
2국립공원연구원 철새연구센터
1East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership Secretariat
2Migratory Birds Center, Korea National Park Service

ⓒ Copyright 2011 Korean Association for Conservation of Nature. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Dec 31, 2011

ABSTRACT

Understanding the breeding range of migratory birds is important for ecological studies, conservation, disease surveillance as well as environmental researches on climate change. To overcome several limitation of classic extrinsic markers and tracking devices in the breeding range estimation of wintering Rooks (Corvus frugilegus) in Korea, we collected wing feathers of young rooks at Ulsan city and analyzed stable hydrogen and oxygen isotopes from 2008 to 2010. According to the overlapped layers of known breeding ranges, standardized isotopes from feather analyses, and reported isotopes in precipitation, the Amur River Basin between northern Heilongjiang Province in China and southern Amur Oblast in Russia was identified as a main breeding range of the rooks wintering in Korea, particularly in Ulsan city. We suggest that this result indicates the high effectiveness of stable isotopes as general geographic markers in migration studies. To clearly understand the migration strategy of rooks in north-east Asia, the identified breeding range of rooks may need to be confirmed or supplemented by further researches using makers and tracking devices in near future.

Keywords: Amur River; breeding range; Corvus frugilegus; feather; stable isotope