期刊
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
卷 290, 期 2003, 页码 -出版社
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2023.1387
关键词
appendage; diet; flight performance; interspecific variation; morphology; thermoregulation
This study examined the global gradients in the relative lengths of bird bills and tarsi to body size, and found that diet and flight efficiency were the primary predictors for bill length and tarsus length respectively. The effects of these factors differed between passerines and non-passerines, and temperature-related effects exhibited opposite trends between these two groups.
Bills and legs are two vital appendages for birds, and they exhibit huge interspecific variation in form and function, yet no study has examined the global predictors of this variation. This study examined global gradients in the relative lengths of bird bills and tarsi (i.e. exposed leg parts) to body size across non-migratory birds, while accounting for phylogeny. We found that relative bill length and tarsus length were related to diet, habitat density, latitude, annual mean temperature, temperature variability and hand-wing index (HWI), a proxy for birds' flight efficiency. Among these factors, diet played a primary role in predicting bill length, with nectar-feeding pollinators, vertivores, invertivores and omnivores having longer bills; HWI emerged as the predominant predictor of tarsus length, wherein species with higher HWI had shorter tarsi. However, the effects of these factors differed between passerines and non-passerines, with some temperature-related effects exhibiting opposite trends between these two groups. Our findings highlight the compromise in adaptations for feeding, thermoregulation and flight performance between the two distinct appendages.
作者
我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。
推荐
暂无数据