Lecture on Using Breath Collectors to Study Diet Changes of Migratory Birds
Birds choose to eat different food in different places when migrating. That might be due to varied accessibility of different food or nutrients to sustain for a long trip. To find out what food they specifically eat during migration, biologists divide a way to study the change. They test Carbon signature in birds’ breaths and different tissues. Carbon signature, in other words, the ratio of Carbon 14 to Carbon 12, will change due to different food they eat. Carbon signatures in breaths can tell their recent diet, while in blood cells or feathers can tell their previous diets. And hence, biologists can know what they eat along the way.
Such methods have huge applications. After knowing changes in diets, experts can guess why birds choose different diets and set bird feeders on stop sites along the way with perfect ratios of food for them. In this way, migratory birds can be better preserved.
