Latitudinal gradients in avian colourfulness

Christopher R. Cooney; Yichen He; Zoë K. Varley; Lara O. Nouri; Christopher J.A. Moody; Michael D. Jardine; András Liker; Tamás Székely; Gavin H. Thomas

doi:10.1038/s41559-022-01714-1

Latitudinal gradients in avian colourfulness

Christopher R. Cooney, Yichen He, Zoë K. Varley, Lara O. Nouri, Christopher J.A. Moody, Michael D. Jardine, András Liker, Tamás Székely, Gavin H. Thomas

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Abstract

It has long been suggested that tropical species are generally more colourful than temperate species, but whether latitudinal gradients in organismal colourfulness exist remains controversial. Here we quantify global latitudinal trends in colourfulness (within-individual colour diversity) by collating and analysing a photographic dataset of whole-body plumage reflectance information for >4,500 species of passerine birds. We show that male and female birds of tropical passerine species are generally more colourful than their temperate counterparts, both on average and in the extreme. We also show that these geographic gradients can be explained in part by the effects of several latitude-related factors related to classic hypotheses for climatic and ecological determinants of organismal colourfulness. Taken together, our results reveal that species’ colourfulness peaks in the tropics for passerine birds, confirming the existence of a long-suspected yet hitherto elusive trend in the distribution of global biodiversity.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	622-629
Number of pages	8
Journal	Nature Ecology and Evolution
Volume	6
Issue number	5
Early online date	4 Apr 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01714-1
Publication status	Published - 31 May 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was funded by a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (ECF-2018-101) and a Natural Environment Research Council Independent Research Fellowship (NE/T01105X/1) to C.R.C., a Leverhulme Centre for Advanced Biological Modelling PhD studentship to Y.H., a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award (WM170050, APEX APX\R1\191045) and a National Research, Development and Innovation Office of Hungary grant (ÉLVONAL KKP-126949, K-116310) to T.S., and a European Research Council grant (615709, Project ‘ToLERates’) and a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (UF120016, URF\R\180006) to G.H.T.

Data availability
All analysis data are available in Supplementary Data 1. In addition, the phylogenetic trees were downloaded from http://www.birdtree.org, the geographic and ecological data were accessed via BirdLife International’s Data Zone (http://www.datazone.birdlife.org), and the global climate data were downloaded from WorldClim (https://worldclim.org/).

Funding

We thank M. Adams, H. van Grouw, R. Prys-Jones and A. Bond from the Bird Group at the Natural History Museum at Tring for providing access to and expertise in the collection, N. Brett for assistance with data collection, and F. Babarović, J. Kennedy, L. Rombault and A. Slavenko for helpful discussion and feedback. This work was funded by a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (ECF-2018-101) and a Natural Environment Research Council Independent Research Fellowship (NE/T01105X/1) to C.R.C., a Leverhulme Centre for Advanced Biological Modelling PhD studentship to Y.H., a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award (WM170050, APEX APX\R1\191045) and a National Research, Development and Innovation Office of Hungary grant (ÉLVONAL KKP-126949, K-116310) to T.S., and a European Research Council grant (615709, Project ‘ToLERates’) and a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (UF120016, URF\R\180006) to G.H.T.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Ecology

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This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01714-1
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Cite this

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abstract = "It has long been suggested that tropical species are generally more colourful than temperate species, but whether latitudinal gradients in organismal colourfulness exist remains controversial. Here we quantify global latitudinal trends in colourfulness (within-individual colour diversity) by collating and analysing a photographic dataset of whole-body plumage reflectance information for >4,500 species of passerine birds. We show that male and female birds of tropical passerine species are generally more colourful than their temperate counterparts, both on average and in the extreme. We also show that these geographic gradients can be explained in part by the effects of several latitude-related factors related to classic hypotheses for climatic and ecological determinants of organismal colourfulness. Taken together, our results reveal that species{\textquoteright} colourfulness peaks in the tropics for passerine birds, confirming the existence of a long-suspected yet hitherto elusive trend in the distribution of global biodiversity.",

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note = "Funding Information: This work was funded by a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (ECF-2018-101) and a Natural Environment Research Council Independent Research Fellowship (NE/T01105X/1) to C.R.C., a Leverhulme Centre for Advanced Biological Modelling PhD studentship to Y.H., a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award (WM170050, APEX APX\R1\191045) and a National Research, Development and Innovation Office of Hungary grant ({\'E}LVONAL KKP-126949, K-116310) to T.S., and a European Research Council grant (615709, Project {\textquoteleft}ToLERates{\textquoteright}) and a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (UF120016, URF\R\180006) to G.H.T. Data availability All analysis data are available in Supplementary Data 1. In addition, the phylogenetic trees were downloaded from http://www.birdtree.org, the geographic and ecological data were accessed via BirdLife International{\textquoteright}s Data Zone (http://www.datazone.birdlife.org), and the global climate data were downloaded from WorldClim (https://worldclim.org/).",

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AU - Liker, András

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Latitudinal gradients in avian colourfulness

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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