Molt in Neotropical Birds: Life History and Aging Criteria

Molt is an important avian life history event in which feathers are shed and replaced. The timing, duration, seasonality, extent and pattern of molt follows certain strategies and this book reviews and describes these strategies for nearly 190 species based on information gathered from a 30-year study of Central Amazonian birds. Most species accounts are illustrated with several color photos focusing on wing and tail feather molt, molt limits, and how to use these patterns to accurately age birds.

Published in collaboration with and on behalf of the American Ornithological Society, this volume in the highly-regarded Studies in Avian Biology series is a rich source of life history information for ornithologists working on tropical birds.

Erik I. Johnson, Ph.D., is Director of Bird Conservation for Audubon Louisiana and an Adjunct Graduate Faculty Member at the School of Renewable Natural Resources, Louisiana State University. Erik completed his dissertation work studying the effects of forest fragmentation on avian communities at the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP) in coordination with the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA). Through that work, he developed and applied aging criteria to demonstrate how forest fragmentation alters demographic structuring of bird populations, and identified novel patterns in molt-breeding overlap across a suite of Neotropical bird species and families. Now primarily working on avian conservation challenges along the Gulf Coast of the United States, Erik continues to work with students at the BDFFP and helps teach an annual banding workshop offered by INPA. Erik has over 15 years of applied ornithological research experience in five countries resulting in over 25 scientific publications and much of his work is reflected in this volume. Many of these publications advance or utilize knowledge about aging birds, including the advancement of an age classification system based on plumage and molt patterns that is applicable to birds worldwide.

Jared D. Wolfe, Ph.D., is Research Faculty in the Wildlife Department at Humboldt State University and a Wildlife Ecologist at the USDA Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station. In addition to conducting extensive field work in the Amazon, including his Ph.D. at the BDFFP, Jared has broadened his research interests to Central Africa where he regularly conducts field work to better understand and conserve understudied bird communities in Equatorial Guinea. Recognizing the need for an improved method to classify bird age, Jared developed a transformative and universal system of age classification for tropical birds based on plumage and molt patterns – the system continually grows in popularity among tropical ornithologists. Jared has published numerous articles on bird molt, demography and behavior, and continues to teach advanced banding courses throughout the Americas and Africa.