DOI: 10.5061/dryad.m905qfv4t
title: Data for: Altered wing phenotypes of captive‐bred migratory birds lower post‐release fitness

description: Captive-breeding and release to the wild is a globally important
 conservation tool. However, captivity can result in phenotypic changes
 that incur post-release fitness costs, especially if they affect strenuous
 or risky behaviors. Bird wing shape is critical for migration success and
 suboptimal phenotypes are strongly selected against. I demonstrate
 surprising plasticity of bird wing phenotypes in captivity for 4/16
 studied species. In a model species, captive-born juveniles with wild wing
 phenotypes (a 1mm longer distal primary flight feather) survived
 post-release at 2.7 times the rate of those with captive phenotypes (i.e.
 a shorter distal feather). Subtle phenotypic changes and their fitness
 impacts are more common than widely realized because they are easily
 overlooked. To improve captive-breeding for conservation, practitioners
 must surveil phenotypic changes and find ways to mitigate them.
description: There are two data sets included here: (i) shape_long.csv; (ii)
 ws.csv. Below i describe each in turn.
 <strong>shape_long.csv: </strong>
 I measured study skins at the Australian National
 Wildlife Collection, Australian Museum, American Museum of Natural
 History, Harvard Natural History Museum, Museum of Victoria, South
 Australian Museum and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. I assigned
 individual provenance (captive/wild) based on specimen metadata. Captive
 specimen availability was patchy in museum collections – I aimed for at
 least five captive and wild specimens per species and excluded those that
 were under-represented. Species inclusion was limited by (i) collection
 bias toward attractive Australian native species which are preferred in
 captivity (Vall-llosera
 & Cassey 2017),
 (ii) for non-Australian species, absence of wild specimens for comparison,
 and (iii) sex-biased collections of some species (Cooper et al. 2019). Only specimens in perfect feather condition
 were included (e.g. molting individuals or those with broken feather tips
 were excluded). I selected common species in zoological and private
 collections because, like multi-generational conservation-focused
 captive-breeding programs, specimens were likely to be captive-born (not
 wild-collected). Although I previously showed that wing shape change in
 orange-bellied parrots (<em>Neophema
 chrysogaster</em>)
 is independent of generations of captive breeding, I aimed to minimize
 this risk in other species by using older captive-bred specimens that were
 less likely to be multi-generational captive-bred. However, the individual
 histories of captive-born specimens in this study were unknown. The mean
 collection date of captive specimens was 1955 vs. 1938 for wild specimens,
 reflecting the emergence of Australian avicultural trapping and trade last
 century (Franklin et al.
 2014).
 In Figure 1 of the main
 paper, I illustrate the measurements taken in this study. Using electronic
 calipers (0.01mm) and rulers (1mm) I measured: wing chord
 (L<sub>W</sub>), the length of the most distal secondary
 feather (L<sub>S</sub>) and the length of the longest primary
 feather (L<sub>P</sub>) (per Jenni & Winkler
 1989). For the proximal
 and distal feathers adjacent to the L<sub>P</sub> I measured
 the distance between their tips and the tip of LP (i.e. ΔQ, per Lockwood et al.
 1998). The sample included
 16 species from three families: Phasianidae, n=1 sp.;
 Psittaculidae, n=9 spp.; Estrildidae, n=6 spp. This wide array of species
 involves variance in wing shape; for some species, the
 L<sub>P</sub> = P9 (i.e. second proximally from P10 on the
 leading edge of the wing) and for others, L<sub>P</sub> = P8 (see Table S1). For simplicity, I
 hereafter refer only to the ‘proximal’ and ‘distal’ flight feathers
 adjacent the L<sub>P</sub> (i.e. in some species this corresponds to P8
 and P10 respectively, and in others it is P9 and P7). Furthermore, male
 princess parrots <em>Polytelis</em>
 <em>alexandrae</em> develop secondary sexual ornamentation –
 an elongated, spatulate tip on P8 – which makes this the
 L<sub>P</sub> (Higgins 1999). In contrast, P9 is the L<sub>P</sub> in female princess parrots and other
 <em>Polytelis</em> species (Higgins 1999). Consequently, I excluded male princess parrots
 to avoid skewing measurements due to sex. I aimed for equal sex ratios
 (Table S1) but due to collection biases (Cooper et al. 2019) and inclusion of monomorphic species without
 sex data, I did not always achieve parity. 
 <strong>ws.csv:</strong>
 I measured 78 juvenile
 captive-bred orange-bellied parrots (<em>Neophema
 chrysogaster</em>) that were subsequently released to the wild over
 three years (2019: 30, 2020: 31, and 2021: 17). No wild-born parrots are
 included because at the nestling phase when wild birds are typically
 handled their wing feathers are still developing. In contrast, my sample
 of captive-bred parrots was between the ages of 3–5 weeks post-fledging,
 and their wing feathers were fully grown (Stojanovic et al. 2020a). Only juveniles with perfect wing feathers were
 included in this study. Juveniles are selected for release based on
 metapopulation management considerations (Morrison et al. 2020; Troy & Lawrence
 2021) but not for any
 particular phenotypic trait bar good body mass and good general feather
 condition. Per Figure 1, I measured ΔQ of the feathers proximal (P8) and
 distal (P10) to the L<sub>P</sub> (P9), which are known to
 vary between captive and wild parrots (Stojanovic et al. 2021). I dropped L<sub>S</sub> but
 recorded L<sub>W</sub>, tail length
 (L<sub>T</sub>) and body mass (g). As an index of individual
 condition, I divided body mass by L<sub>W</sub> to scale for overall size. I scored individuals
 as having survived (1) or died (0) their first year of life based on
 whether or not they returned from their first migration. I used the same
 criteria as previous survival analyses for this species using sightings
 data from supplementary feeders in the wild (Stojanovic et al. 2020d).