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Transitions between colour mechanisms affect speciation dynamics and range distributions of birds

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Abstract

Several ecogeographical ‘rules’ have been proposed to explain colour variation at broad spatial and phylogenetic scales but these rarely consider whether colours are based on pigments or structural colours. However, mechanism can have profound effects on the function and evolution of colours. Here, we combine geographic information, climate data and colour mechanism at broad phylogenetic (9,409 species) and spatial scales (global) to determine how transitions between pigmentary and structural colours influence speciation dynamics and range distributions in birds. Among structurally coloured species, we find that rapid dispersal into tropical regions drove the accumulation of iridescent species, whereas the build-up of non-iridescent species in the tropics was driven by a combination of dispersal and faster in situ evolution in the tropics. These results could be explained by pleiotropic links between colouration and dispersal behaviour or ecological factors influencing colonization success. These data elucidate geographic patterns of colouration at a global scale and provide testable hypotheses for future work on birds and other animals with structural colours.

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Fig. 1: Structural colour database assembly.
Fig. 2: Geographic distribution of different forms of structural colouration in birds.
Fig. 3: Ancestral states of different forms of structural colouration in tropical and temperate regions.
Fig. 4: Diversification dynamics are distinct for different forms of structural colouration.

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Data availability

All data needed to replicate these analyses are available via Dryad at https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.02v6wwqc0 (ref. 85).

Code availability

All code needed to perform analyses is available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11491149 (ref. 67).

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Bates for fruitful discussions early in the project. M. Nelson and R. Ree provided technical comments that were immensely helpful in conducting the final analyses. We also thank O. Pauwels, P. Kamminga and A. Nackaerts for access to the collections of the RBINS, Naturalis and RMMA, respectively. We thank G. Debruyn with help in collecting data. This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF EP-2112468 to C.M.E.), EOARD (FA98655-23-1-7041 to M.D.S. and L.D.), AFOSR (FA9550-18-0-0447 to M.D.S.) and FWO (G007117N and G0E8322N both to M.D.S.).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Grainger Bioinformatics Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, USA

    Chad M. Eliason

  2. Negaunee Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, USA

    Chad M. Eliason

  3. Biology Department, Evolution and Optics of Nanostructures Group, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Michaël P. J. Nicolaï, Liliana D’Alba & Matthew D. Shawkey

  4. Department of Recent Vertebrates, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium

    Michaël P. J. Nicolaï

  5. Faculty of Science, Ecology & Evolution, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

    Cynthia Bom

  6. Evolutionary Ecology Group, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, the Netherlands

    Eline Blom & Liliana D’Alba

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Contributions

C.M.E. designed the study. C.M.E., M.P.J.N., C.B., E.B., L.D. and M.D.S. collected data. C.M.E. analysed the data and produced figures. C.M.E. wrote the initial manuscript. C.M.E., M.P.J.N., C.B., E.B., L.D. and M.D.S. revised and approved the final manuscript.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Diversification dynamics are distinct for different forms of structural colouration.

Panels show support for the “structurally coloured dispersers” hypothesis H1 (a), the “tropical transitions” hypothesis H2 (b) and the “structurally coloured speciators” hypothesis H3 (c) for different range overlap cut-offs ordered by decreasing stringency (see Methods for details). Point colours indicate different colouration mechanisms: iridescent structural colour (ISC; purple) and non-iridescent structural colour (NISC; gold). Significant effects indicated with filled circles. See Fig. 4a for model details and Extended Data Fig. 5 for results for alternate phylogenies and species range map grid cell resolutions. Note different y-axis scales for each panel.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Climatic variation explains prevalence of species with structural colour.

Panels show proportion/probability of being ISC (a–c) or NISC (d–f) as a function of climate PC1 (a,d), climate PC2 (b,e), and natural log-transformed body mass in grams (c,f). Lines are drawn from parameters estimated with phylogenetic logistic regression in phyloglm, with non-significant relationships indicated as dashed lines. Climate PC1 (β = 0.05), associated with cooler, drier, more seasonally variable climates, and climate PC2 (β = −0.05), associated with less seasonally variable and hotter climates, were both significant predictors of ISC (a,b), but body size was not (c, pseudo R2 = 0.09). Only climate PC1 (β = −0.03) was a significant predictor of NISC (d, pseudo R2 = 0.07). See Table 2 for statistical details and Supplementary Fig. 3 for results under alternative phylogenies and grid cell resolutions.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Different habitats support different numbers of structurally coloured species.

Bars show number of species with pigment-based colouration (dark blue), iridescent structural colouration (pink), and non-iridescent structural colouration (gold) in different habitats. Numbers to right of bars are proportions of species in that habitat with either form of structural colouration (that is, ISC or NISC). Habitat bars sharing similar superscript letters are not significantly different in proportions of overall numbers of structurally coloured species (two-sided phylogenetic GLM, P < 0.05, phylogenetic signal = 0.026).

Extended Data Fig. 4 Effects of recoding areas on ClaSSE parameter estimates.

Mean parameter estimates (points) and 95% credible intervals (vertical lines) for temperate (a–e) and tropical regions (f–j) under a 33-parameter ClaSSE model (see Fig. 4a for details). Parameters are dispersal rates (a,f), rates of structural colour gain (b,g), rates of structural colour loss (c,h), speciation rates (d,i), and extinction rates (e,j). Colours correspond to pigment-based colours (PBC; dark blue), iridescent structural colours (ISC; purple) and non-iridescent structural colours (NISC; gold). Similar to recent work studying dispersal and speciation rates across tetrapods5, less stringent cut-offs result in fewer widespread species and, subsequently, higher dispersal rates into tropical regions (Extended Data Fig. 1a). Results are shown for the phylogeny from ref. 51 and a 2º map grid cell resolution.

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Supplementary Text 1–3, Figs. 1–5, Tables 1–3 and References.

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Eliason, C.M., Nicolaï, M.P.J., Bom, C. et al. Transitions between colour mechanisms affect speciation dynamics and range distributions of birds. Nat Ecol Evol 8, 1723–1734 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02487-5

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