期刊
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
卷 289, 期 1978, 页码 -出版社
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0678
关键词
avian flight; signalling; plumage coloration; sensory mechanism; comparative analysis
资金
- Sun Yatsen University
- National Nature Science Foundation of China [31822049, 31572251]
- Heisenberg Grant by the German Research Foundation DFG [GR 4650/2-1]
- Ma Huateng Foundation
This study explores the collision avoidance mechanisms in birds and finds that larger species and colonial breeders have more contrasting ventral wings, which may serve as a sensory mechanism to help them avoid collisions.
Collisions between fast-moving objects often cause severe damage, but collision avoidance mechanisms of fast-moving animals remain understudied. Particularly, birds can fly fast and often in large groups, raising the question of how individuals avoid in-flight collisions that are potentially lethal. We tested the collision-avoidance hypothesis, which proposes that conspicuously contrasting ventral wings are visual signals that help birds to avoid collisions. We scored the ventral wing contrasts for a global dataset of 1780 bird species. Phylogenetic comparative analyses showed that larger species had more contrasting ventral wings than smaller species, and that in larger species, colonial breeders had more contrasting ventral wings than non-colonial breeders. Evidently, larger species have lower manoeuvrability than smaller species, and colonial-breeding species frequently encounter con- and heterospecifics, increasing their risk of in-flight collisions. Thus, more contrasting ventral wing patterns in these species are a sensory mechanism that facilitates collision avoidance.
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