Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences , Uppsala , Sweden.
Department of Animal Ecology, Uppsala University , Norbyvägen, Uppsala , Sweden.
PeerJ. 2014 Oct 9;2:e621. doi: 10.7717/peerj.621. eCollection 2014.
Billions of birds are estimated to be killed in window collisions every year, worldwide. A popular solution to this problem may lie in marking the glass with ultraviolet reflective or absorbing patterns, which the birds, but not humans, would see. Elegant as this remedy may seem at first glance, few of its proponents have taken into consideration how stark the contrasts between ultraviolet and human visible light reflections or transmissions must be to be visible to a bird under natural conditions. Complicating matters is that diurnal birds differ strongly in how their photoreceptors absorb ultraviolet and to a lesser degree blue light. We have used a physiological model of avian colour vision to estimate the chromatic contrasts of ultraviolet markings against a natural scene reflected and transmitted by ordinary window glass. Ultraviolets markings may be clearly visible under a range of lighting conditions, but only to birds with a UVS type of ultraviolet vision, such as many passerines. To bird species with the common VS type of vision, ultraviolet markings should only be visible if they produce almost perfect ultraviolet contrasts and are viewed against a scene with low chromatic variation but high ultraviolet content.
据估计，全球每年有数十亿只鸟类在撞窗事故中死亡。解决这个问题的一种流行方法可能是在玻璃上标记上紫外线反射或吸收的图案，这些图案鸟类能看到，而人类却看不到。乍一看，这种方法似乎很巧妙，但很少有支持者考虑到，为了让鸟类在自然条件下看到，紫外线和人眼可见光的反射或透射之间的对比度必须有多大。更复杂的是，昼行性鸟类在吸收紫外线和一定程度的蓝光方面有很大的差异。我们使用鸟类颜色视觉的生理模型来估计紫外线标记在普通窗户玻璃反射和透射的自然场景中的色度对比度。在一系列光照条件下，紫外线标记可能清晰可见，但只有具有 UVS 型紫外线视觉的鸟类（如许多雀形目鸟类）才能看到。对于具有常见 VS 型视觉的鸟类物种，只有当它们产生几乎完美的紫外线对比，并在具有低色度变化但高紫外线含量的场景中观察时，紫外线标记才可见。
