ASSESSING THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHOREBIRD EGGS USING THE FLOTATION METHOD: SPECIES-SPECIFIC AND GENERALIZED REGRESSION MODELS

We modeled the relationship between egg flotation and age of a developing embryo for 24 species of shorebirds. For 21 species, we used regression analyses to estimate hatching date by modeling egg angle and float height, measured as continuous variables, against embryo age. For eggs early in incubation, we used linear regression analyses to predict hatching date from logit-transformed egg angles only. For late incubation, we used multiple regression analyses to predict hatching date from both egg angles and float heights. In 30 of 36 cases, these equations estimated hatching date to within four days of the true hatching date for each species. After controlling for incubation duration and egg size, flotation patterns did not differ between shorebirds grouped by mass (≥100 g or