Centre for Ecology and Conservation University of Exeter, Penryn, UK.
Commun Biol. 2022 Nov 22;5(1):1205. doi: 10.1038/s42003-022-04144-8.
There are many hypotheses explaining the diversity of colours and patterns found in nature, but they are often difficult to examine empirically. Recent studies show the dark upperside of gliding birds' wings could reduce drag by decreasing the density of surrounding air. It may therefore be expected that species with darker wings have less efficient morphology than their paler counterparts. I conducted an analysis of the Larinae (gulls), which exhibit extreme variation in wing (mantle and wingtip) melanization, to test whether wing loading is a predictor of wing darkness. I found that, for each standard deviation increase in wing loading, mantle darkness is predicted to increase by 1.2 shades on the Kodak grey scale. Wing loading is also positively related to the proportion of black on wingtips. Furthermore, heavier species have lower aspect ratio wings, suggesting that dark wings have evolved to improve the trade-off between maneuverability and long distance flight.
有许多假说可以解释自然界中颜色和图案的多样性，但这些假说往往难以进行实证检验。最近的研究表明，滑翔鸟类翅膀的深色上表面可以通过降低周围空气的密度来减少阻力。因此，可以预期翅膀颜色较深的物种比颜色较浅的物种形态效率更低。我对 Larinae（海鸥）进行了分析，该科鸟类的翅膀（翼肩和翼梢）黑化程度存在极端差异，以检验翼载是否可以预测翅膀的黑暗程度。我发现，翼载每增加一个标准差，Kodak 灰阶上翼肩的黑化程度预计会增加 1.2 个色阶。翼载与翼梢黑色部分的比例也呈正相关。此外，较重的物种具有较低的展弦比翅膀，这表明深色翅膀的进化是为了改善机动性和长距离飞行之间的权衡。
