"Gould believes that birds the same species are more brightly coloured under a clear atmosphere, than when living on islands or near the coast."
Charles Darwin, Origin of Species 1st edition (on Kindle)
I could see arguments for and against this pattern depending on the strengths of sexual selection versus predation. One would think on an island, free of predators that birds would be more brightly colored. Now that we have fancy spectrophotometers this should be easy to test if it already hasn't been.
On deck today: the intro paper to our special issue of Conservation Biology. Should be fun to work on between loads of laundry. Also need to clean out gutters and write a biostats exam. Fun never ends.
Listening to The Leucocyte Maneuver on Science Fiction Theater Radio. Good stuff.
"Gould believes that birds the same species are more brightly coloured under a clear atmosphere, than when living on islands or near the coast."
Charles Darwin, Origin of Species 1st edition (on Kindle)
I could see arguments for and against this pattern depending on the strengths of sexual selection versus predation. One would think on an island, free of predators that birds would be more brightly colored. Now that we have fancy spectrophotometers this should be easy to test if it already hasn't been.
On deck today: the intro paper to our special issue of Conservation Biology. Should be fun to work on between loads of laundry. Also need to clean out gutters and write a biostats exam. Fun never ends.
Listening to The Leucocyte Maneuver on Science Fiction Theater Radio. Good stuff.
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