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47 results for “bird colouration”
Data from: The plumage and colouration of an enantiornithine bird from the Early Cretaceous of China
Brilliant colour displays and diverse feather morphologies that are often sexual ornaments are common throughout much of extant Avialae. Here we describe a new basal enantiornithine bird specimen recovered from the Early Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of Liaoning Province in northeastern China. We present new information on the plumage of Bohaiornithidae as well as the first detailed colour reconstruction of an enantiornithine bird. The new specimen retains subadult skeletal characteristics, including periosteal pitting of the long bone epiphyses and unfused elements, while also preserving plumage evidence consistent with sexual maturity at the time of death. Exceptionally-preserved feathers cover the body, including elongate crown feathers, body contour feathers, asymmetrically-veined wing primaries, an alula and two elongate rachis-dominated rectrices that may have been sexual ornaments. The crown, neck, and body contour feathers retain elongate melanosome morphologies associated with weakly iridescent colouration in extant feathers. We provide additional evidence of preserved melanin using Raman spectroscopy; a rapid, non-destructive chemical technique. The new specimen provides data on skeletal ontogeny in the Bohaiornithidae as well as evidence for intraspecific communication functions of plumage.
Data and codes from: Crossing strategies of ecological barriers are affected by wing morphology and plumage colour in small migratory birds
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Back in black: concealed skin colour and skin colour polymorphism promotes diversification in birds
<p>Evolutionary biologists have long been interested in understanding the factors that promote diversification in organisms, often focusing on distinct and/or conspicuous phenotypes with direct effects on natural or sexual selection such as body size and plumage colouration. However, multiple traits that potentially influence net diversification are not conspicuous and/or might be concealed. One such trait, the dark, melanin-rich skin concealed beneath the feathers, evolved more than 100 times during avian evolution, frequently in association with white feathers on the crown and UV-rich environments, suggesting that it is a UV-photoprotective adaptation. Furthermore, multiple species are polymorphic, having both light and dark skin. Such polymorphisms might aid in species occupying different UV radiation environments with dark skin enabling their presence in high UV-rich areas, and light skin to cope with potential negative effects of melanised skin when this becomes redundant. As such these polymorphisms are predicted in species with large latitudinal variation in their distribution. Furthermore, via this polymorphism, and by alleviating evolutionary constraints on feather colour, the evolution of dark skin may promote net diversification. Here, using an expanded dataset on bird skin colouration of 3033 species (with all families and 99% of bird genera), we found that more than 19% of species had dark skin. Contrary to our prediction, dark-skinned birds have smaller distribution ranges. Furthermore, we show that the evolution of dark skin colours and polymorphism in skin colouration, promotes net diversification. These results suggest that even hidden or concealed traits can influence large-scale evolutionary events such as diversification in birds.</p>
Data from: Colour-variable birds have broader ranges, wider niches and are less likely to be threatened
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Data from: Floral colours in a world without birds and bees: the plants of Macquarie Island
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Roadkill risk in European birds: The role of detection and plumage colouration
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Data from: The correlation between colouration and exploration behaviour varies across hierarchical levels in a wild passerine bird
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Data from: Plumage and eggshell colouration covary with the level of sex-specific parental contributions to nest building in birds
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Back in black: concealed skin colour and skin colour polymorphism promotes diversification in birds
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Data from: Roses are red, violets are blue - so how much replication should you do? An assessment of variation in the colour of flowers and birds
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Data from: The plumage and colouration of an enantiornithine bird from the Early Cretaceous of China
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Data from: Comparing entire colour patterns as birds see them
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Examining the link between relaxed predation and bird colouration on islands
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Data from: Shades of red: bird-pollinated flowers target the specific colour discrimination abilities of avian vision
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Data from: Brain size and the expression of pheomelanin-based colour in birds
Eumelanin and pheomelanin are the most common vertebrate pigments. They generate different colours and are synthesized under different physiological conditions. While pheomelanogenesis requires high levels of a key intracellular antioxidant (glutathione, GSH), eumelanogenesis is inhibited by GSH. This implies that species that present the molecular basis to produce large amounts of pheomelanin might be more limited to perform other costly processes that generate oxidative stress than species that produce eumelanin. Brain development requires large amounts of energy and antioxidants during ontogeny, so that large-brained species may be constrained in their simultaneous synthesis of large amounts of pheomelanin, but not in their synthesis of eumelanin. Here we tested this hypothesis in a large dataset of 323 bird species. After controlling for the effects of phylogeny, latitude and sexual dichromatism, the proportion of pheomelanic plumage colour was strongly negatively related to the relative brain mass of species, while no relationship was found for the proportion of eumelanic colour. This indicates that the production of pheomelanin is a costly process that cannot evolve together with complex neural structures and thus with large cognitive capacity. This is the first time that the expression of melanic traits is found to correlate with another phenotypic character across species.
Data from: Evolution of iris colour in relation to cavity nesting and parental care in passerine birds
Strong selection pressures are known to act on animal coloration. Although many animals vary in eye colour, virtually no research has investigated the functional significance of these colour traits. Passeriformes have a range of iris colours, making them an ideal system to investigate how and why iris colour has evolved. Using phylogenetic comparative methods, we tested the hypothesis that conspicuous iris colour in passerine birds evolved in response to (a) coordination of offspring care and (b) cavity nesting, two traits thought to be involved in intra-specific gaze sensitivity. We found that iris colour and cooperative offspring care by two or more individuals evolved independently, suggesting that bright eyes are not important for coordinating parental care through eye gaze. Furthermore, we found that evolution between iris colour and nesting behaviour did occur in a dependent manner, but contrary to predictions, transitions to coloured eyes were not more frequent in cavity nesters than non-cavity nesters. Instead, our results indicate that selection away from having bright eyes was much stronger in non-cavity nesters than cavity nesters, perhaps because conspicuous eye coloration in species not concealed within a cavity would be more visible to predators.
Data from: Effects of an early-life paraquat exposure on adult resistance to oxidative stress, plumage colour and sperm performance in a wild bird
1. Early-life stressful conditions can shape individual phenotypes and ultimately influence fitness. Oxidative stress is a pervasive threat that affects many fitness-related traits and can modulate life-history trade-offs. Yet, the extent to which exposure to oxidative stress during early life can have long-lasting effects on key fitness-related traits remains to be elucidated, particularly in natural populations of vertebrates. 2. Using a wild population of great tits Parus major, we experimentally dosed 11 day-old birds with paraquat, a pro-oxidant molecule, aiming at increasing oxidative stress. One year later, we recaptured 39 of them as adult recruiting breeders and quantified effects of the paraquat exposure on their resistance to oxidative stress, carotenoid-based plumage colouration and male sperm performance. 3. Despite the absence of a short-term effect of paraquat on oxidative stress measured two days later, the pre-fledging exposure to paraquat induced a reduction in individual oxidative damage measured at adulthood. Paraquat-dosed individuals also had brighter plumage, but no effect was observed on male sperm performance. 4. For the first time in a natural population of vertebrates, we experimentally show that an early-life acute exposure to a pro-oxidant has long-lasting effects on individual resistance to oxidative stress at adulthood. Our results are in line with the environmental matching and the hormesis hypotheses but may also reflect selective disappearance of individuals with lower resistance to oxidative stress.
Variability, heritability and condition-dependence of the multidimensional male colour phenotype in a passerine bird
<p>Elaborate ornamental traits are commonly assumed to be honest signals of individual quality, owing to the presumed costs involved in their production and/or maintenance. Such traits are often highly variable, possibly because of condition-dependence and/or high underlying genetic variation, and it has been suggested that their expression should be more sensitive to condition and/or more heritable than non-ornamental traits. Many bird species display colourful plumage with multiple distinct patches of different developmental origins, forming complex colour phenotypes. Despite this complexity, colourful ornaments are often studied in isolation, without comparison to suitable non-ornamental controls. Based on plumage reflectance data collected over 8 years, we assessed the signalling potential of the multidimensional male colour phenotype in a tropical bird: the purple-crowned fairy-wren <i>Malurus coronatus</i>. Specifically, we tested the predictions that the express ion of putative ornamental colours (purple and black –the breeding colours– and blue) is (1) more variable, (2) more heritable and (3) more condition-dependent compared to year-round non-ornamental colours (buff-white and brown). Our results show that ornamental colours exhibit greater levels of variability, and some chromatic components of purple and blue colouration appear slightly heritable (<i>h</i>² = 0.19-0.30). However, contrary to predictions of heightened condition-dependence in ornaments, only brightness of the buff-white and brown colouration increased with male body condition, although brightness of the purple colouration was related to male age as expected. Despite partial support for predictions, the lack of consistent patterns illustrates the complexity of visual signals and highlights the need to study colour phenotypes in their entirety.</p>
Variability, heritability and condition-dependence of the multidimensional male colour phenotype in a passerine bird
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Data from: Visual modelling suggests a weak relationship between the evolution of ultraviolet vision and plumage colouration in birds
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
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DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.