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Ambient light influences the evolution of colour signals
March 18, 2004In light-contrasted ecosystems, ambient light and background colours influence the evolution of animal coloration. Because maximal conspicuousness is achieved for signals which are rich in the colours of ambient light but poorly reflected by background, different signals will be cryptic or conspicuous at different heights in tropical rainforest.
In the forthcoming issue of Ecology Letters, Gomez and Théry compare plumages of 40 species living in French Guiana. They demonstrate that predators exert an important pressure on coloration: birds are well camouflaged with colours similar to their habitat, light green in canopy and dark brown in understorey. On the contrary, ultraviolet is more likely used in conspicuous signals to select mates. Both sexes present similar coloration at each height, but males display more conspicuous sexually selected patterns than females.
Colours of light and background are also likely to influence the evolution of visual signals in other light-contrasted ecosystems.
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Evolution Current Events and Evolution News RSSDNA barcodes: Creative new uses span health, fraud, smuggling, history, more
The scientific ability to quickly and accurately identify species through DNA "barcoding" is being embraced and applied by a growing legion of global authorities - from medical and agricultural researchers to police and customs authorities to palaeontologists and others.
AIBS publishes Darwin articles open access
To celebrate the 150th anniversary this month of the publication of On the Origin of Species, the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) is publishing open access two peer-reviewed articles about Charles Darwin and his historic insights into evolution.
Why nice guys usually get the girls
Female water striders often reject their most persistent and aggressive suitors and prefer the males who aren't so grabby, according to new research. Water striders are insects commonly seen skittering across the surface of streams.
Deciphering the regulatory code
Embryonic development is like a well-organised building project, with the embryo's DNA serving as the blueprint from which all construction details are derived.
The humble beginnings of a king
Tyrannosaurus rex and related large carnivorous dinosaurs together form the family Tyrannosauridae. A long forgotten fossil skull in the collections of the Natural History Museum in London has now provided crucial clues to the early stages of the lengthy evolutionary history of these fearsome predators.
Study sheds light on evolution of human complexity
A painstaking analysis of thousands of genes and the proteins they encode shows that human beings are biologically complex, at least in part, because of the way humans evolved to cope with redundancies arising from duplicate genes.
Electron self-injection into an evolving plasma bubble
Particle accelerators are among the largest and most expensive scientific instruments. Thirty years ago, theorists John Dawson and Toshiki Tajima proposed an idea for making them thousands of times smaller: surf the particles on plasma waves driven by short intense laser pulses.
There's a speed limit to the pace of evolution, Penn biologists say
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a theoretical model that informs the understanding of evolution and determines how quickly an organism will evolve using a catalogue of "evolutionary speed limits."
Precuneus region of human and monkey brain is divided into 4 distinct regions
A study published this week in PNAS provides a comprehensive comparative functional anatomy study in human and monkey brains which reveals highly similar brain networks preserved across evolution.
New dinosaur species from Montana
A husband and wife team of American paleontologists has discovered a new species of dinosaur that lived 112 million years ago during the early Cretaceous of central Montana.
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