Aberrant Colouration in the Atlantic Puffin (&lt;i&gt;Fratercula arctica&lt;/i&gt;), the Common Murre (&lt;i&gt;Uria aalge&lt;/i&gt;), and the Thick-billed Murre (&lt;i&gt;U. lomvia&lt;/i&gt;) from Atlantic Canada

Bond, Alexander L.; Diamond, Antony W.

doi:10.22621/cfn.v130i2.1837

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 10 publications

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“…It has remained difficult to move beyond individual sightings due to the limited ability to amass large sample sizes. However, some studies have compiled the published sightings from particular groups or from particular localities (e.g., Alaja and Mikkola 1997, Konter 2015, Bond and Diamond 2016, Lee and You 2016, Mahabal et al 2016, Mikula et al 2017, Abraham et al 2020) or have performed intensive sampling to try to assess the frequency of atypical plumage in a species or clade (Jehl 1985, Møller et al 2007, Martins-Silva et al 2016). More rarely, studies will ask questions that move beyond sightings or frequencies of atypical individuals in the population (Hudon et al 2017, Besozzi et al 2021, Levinson et al 2021, Camacho et al 2022, Hudon and Pyle 2022, Ocampo et al 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community-sourced sightings of atypical birds can be used to understand the evolution of plumage color and pattern

Aguillon

Shultz

2023

Ornithology

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Birds are known for their brilliant colors and extraordinary patterns. Sightings of individuals with atypical plumage often cause considerable excitement in the birding public, but receive little attention beyond reporting one-off sightings by the scientific community. In this Perspective, we argue that sightings of individuals with atypical plumage submitted to community science platforms hold the potential to further our understanding of the evolution of plumage color and patterning in birds. As a demonstration, we outline 2 examples using sightings of leucistic individuals—those that lack melanin across the body or in certain feather patches. First, we discuss the potential for understanding carotenoid pigmentation with these sightings. Leucism influences melanins, but not carotenoids, and so the extent and distribution of carotenoids across the body are unmasked. In a leucistic individual, carotenoids may or may not be more extensive than what is typically visible and this could help to understand the energetic costs and constraints involved in obtaining, processing, and depositing carotenoids in different species. Second, we discuss how partial leucism could provide insights into plumage pattern evolution. We demonstrate that one can use the many observations present on community science platforms to identify repeated patterns in different partially leucistic individuals of the same species, and match these to patches present in related species. These patterns could be the result of shared underlying genetic variation that controls plumage patterning in birds over long evolutionary timescales. With these examples, we outline a few potential lines of inquiry possible with atypical sightings submitted to community science platforms and note that other plumage aberrations provide additional opportunities. We encourage researchers to take full advantage of these chance sightings when they occur and database managers to make it possible to more easily tag photos of individuals with atypical plumage or other traits.

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