PREFORMATIVE WING MOLT IN 23 NEOTROPICAL RESIDENT PASSERINE SPECIES

Quantitative descriptions of wing-feather replacement during the preformative and prealternate molts of resident Neotropical passerines are deficient: no more than 100 species possess adequate information. Here, we present quantitative molt data for 23 Neotropical passerines in three blocks: wing and tail molt extent, frequency of wingmolt pattern, and frequency of wing-feather replacement. We used Bayesian bootstrapping to estimate mean and 95% credible intervals of wing- and tail-molt extent. We found four molt patterns in the preformative molt, of which most species present more than one. Twenty-one species undergo partial molt, being the general pattern most frequent. Only Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet (Camptostoma imberbe) and Black-chested Sparrow (Peucaea humeralis) undergo a complete preformative molt, the latter also undergoing an extensive prealternate molt. Basic life-history information may inspire hypotheses to explain molt phenomena. In this sense, our results suggest that lack of time constraints has a small influence on completeness of preformative molt, at least in Neotropical passerines.