The Common Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) is a member of the rail family that usually inhabits slow moving or still bodies of water and can spread relatively rapidly and colonize a wide range of habitats. This species is a common resident bird, but a study of its basic ecology has not been published in Taiwan. The objective of this study was to examine the Common Moorhen¡¦s general breeding biology, as well as its diurnal activity patterns. I also made an attempt to describe its breeding behavior and time course. The possibility of morphometric characters difference between the male and female of the species was also examined. The study was conducted from December 2003 to May 2005 in Tainan county and Kaosiung Zhouzai wetland park. The majority of Common Moorhen breeding groups recorded during the study were monogamous. Both male and female birds share the tasks such as incubating the eggs, repairing nest and feeding chicks. The incubation period lasted about 21 days. Our study indicates that the clutch sizes of Common Moorhens ranged between 1 and 8 per female with two to five is typical. The primer P2 and P8 sexing method was successful in identifying the sexes of 52 Common Moorhen. The male was a little bigger than the female. There was significant difference in egg length, width and weight among individual females. Only a nest¡¦s inside diameter correlated to (linear regression) the number of eggs. I think that the number of Common Moorhen populations studied in this study can be quite high, which may be due to :(1) they seem to be breed all year long with good parental care and a successful breeding system (2) some individuals may have well concealed nesting areas, and (3) they have few predators in Taiwan, (4) high survival rate of chicks.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0721105-180201 |
| Date | 21 July 2005 |
| Creators | Chen, Chung-ying |
| Contributors | Michael Hin-kiu Mok, Hsueh-wen Chang, Yuan-hsun Sun |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0721105-180201 |
| Rights | restricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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