The goal for all of us is to understand our beautiful birds and to learn how to help them become better at thriving in their own wild communities. This is essential to avoid the catastrophic loss of some of our beautiful species of every class of bird, particularly our beloved colorful parrot species.
Earlier, a study undertaken by Chicago’s famed Field Museum, headed by Chad M. Eliason, and assisted by five other colleagues from institutions in Belgium and the Netherlands, was intended to discover if and how location plays a role in feather coloration. The study also hoped to explain the possible reality that the connection between ecogeographic and climate change influences feather colors and iridescence. For this study, a long review of a whopping 9,409 species helped explore the possibilities of location and coloration as a direct impact.
Why Some Birds Shine
One aspect of the study uncovered that rapid movement toward tropical locations spurred the proliferation of iridescent species. Just as impactful were the differentiation between structural colors (iridescence, as when colors appear to change under circumstances – like feathers that display in a color but when becoming wet and with light, look like a different color variation), and pigmentary colors that do not change color under any circumstances. It was determined that all birds share common evolutionary ancestry that were exclusively iridescent. Certainly, it is the tropics where the quite colorful birds are found. Go further north and birds become more muted in appearance.
As the researchers developed their tree of birds that became an invaluable dataset, they discovered that 415 bird species mostly originated elsewhere, bringing their iridescent colorations with them to the tropics to evolutionarily spur that trait there. They closely examined thousands of photographs and fossils of species of birds, explored their origins and migration pathways.
As more data were accumulated, the researchers concluded that the first birds were, in fact, likely iridescent by nature and that structural coloration today is an evolutionary trait carried on by DNA. The researchers are still unclear as to how and why iridescence evolved at the beginning, but as more studies like this push out the gate, that answer may soon materialize.
It is thought that weather impacts could be a part. Some birds change colors as humidity changes and so this could factor in as one reason for influence and any potential natural assistance changes might give the bird in coping with weather changes.
This study, in its infancy, is a potentially vast one with strong elements for further discoveries. An abstract of this study can be accessed here.