Control and Function of Carotenoid Coloration in Birds

McGraw, Kevin J.; Blount, Jonathan

doi:10.1201/9781420052312-c23

Cited by 35 publications

(71 citation statements)

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“…Nearly all that is presently known about the relationship between diet and antioxidants in wild animals comes from research on carotenoid pigments in birds (McGraw 2006). Applied research on domesticated animals like chickens and trout, where dietary carotenoid provisioning is key for maintaining the color of skin and egg yolk as well as the health of animals (Hill 2006), has been extended to freeranging species recently, and the role of diet in maintaining carotenoid status is well-established in animals like house Wnches (Hill et al 2002) and guppies (Grether et al 1999).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Serum antioxidant levels in wild birds vary in relation to diet, season, life history strategy, and species

2009

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Micronutrient antioxidants are thought to be generally important for health in many animals, but factors determining levels in individuals and species are not well understood. Diet and season are obvious environmental variables that might predict the degree to which species can accumulate such nutrients. We analyzed antioxidant levels [Trolox-equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC), uric acid (UA), vitamin E, and four carotenoids] in 95 bird species and compared these to species-level data on diet from the literature. Using compositional principal components analysis, we identified two main axes of diet variation: invertebrate consumption and seed-to-fruit ratio. We then examined associations between diet axes and antioxidant measures, with and without control for life-history variation and phylogeny. We also analyzed a subset of 13 species for which we had data on seasonality of antioxidant levels and diet, assessing the variance in antioxidant levels explained by seasonality, diet, and species. Unsurprisingly, there were strong associations between antioxidant levels and diet. TEAC and UA concentration were consistently positively associated with invertebrate consumption and seed-to-fruit ratio, and carotenoid concentrations (e.g. zeaxanthin and beta-carotene) were negatively associated with invertebrate consumption. However, vitamin E was not associated with diet as measured here. Importantly, there is much variation in antioxidants that is not explained by diet, and we are able to identify diet-independent effects of species, season/breeding stage, and life history on antioxidant levels. Circulating antioxidant concentrations within and across species can therefore be viewed as a function of multiple factors, including but not limited to diet, and antioxidant metabolism appears to differ across species and seasons irrespective of diet.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Serum antioxidant levels in wild birds vary in relation to diet, season, life history strategy, and species

2009

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“…The color of black crown feathers derives from melanin deposition during feather growth, which is thought to be largely under hormonal and social control ( Jawor and Breitwisch, 2003;McGraw, 2003McGraw, , 2006b. In contrast, the gold patch contains carotenoid coloration (K. A. Tjernell, B. E. Lyon, D. Shizuka, & A. S. Chaine, unpublished data following the method of McGraw et al 2005) which depends on the acquisition of carotenoid molecules from external food sources ( Hill and Montgomerie, 1994;McGraw, 2006a). Both plumage patches are more variable in winter than during the breeding season (B. E. Lyon, D. Shizuka, & A. S. Chaine, unpublished data), owing to a postbreeding molt in the autumn.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sparrows use multiple status signals in winter social flocks

et al. 2011

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“…2). Once absorbed in the intestine, dietary carotenoids are incorporated in lipoproteins that transport them to the sites of storage or metabolism and, for carotenoids allocated to color ornamentation, to the sites of deposition-the feather follicles (reviewed in McGraw, 2006;Parker, 1996). Species (and sexes in sexually dimorphic species) vary in the amounts, ways, and kinds of carotenoids they absorb and transport, and in whether they deposit dietary carotenoids unchanged or metabolized (Brush, 1978;Fox, Smith, & Wolfson, 1969;Negro, Tella, Hiraldo, Bortolotti, & Prieto, 2001;Stradi, 1998).…”

Section: Reconciling Robustness and Environmental Sensitivity: The Lementioning

confidence: 99%

Evolvability and Robustness in Color Displays: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Data

Badyaev

2007

Evol. Biol.

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Evolution of diet-derived sexual ornaments-some of the most spectacular and diverse traits in the living world-highlights the gap between modern evolutionary theory and empirical data on the origin and inheritance of complex environment-dependent traits. Specifically, current theory offers little insight into how strong environmental contingency of diet-dependent color biosynthesis and environmental variability in precursor supply can be reconciled with extensive evolutionary elaboration, diversification, and convergence of diet-dependent displays among animal taxa. Moreover, biosynthetic pathways of diet-derived displays combine seemingly irreconcilable robustness, lability, and modularity to facilitate elaboration under variable environmental conditions. Here I show that an ontogenetic decrease in the predictability of an association between organismal and environmental components of color biosynthesis and the corresponding evolutionary transition from short-term epigenetic inheritance of peripheral biosynthetic components to genetic inheritance of the most reliable upstream components link the causes of developmental variation with the causes of inheritance in diet-derived displays. Using carotenoid-based colors as an empirical model, I outline general principles of a testable evolutionary framework of diversification and functional robustness of diet-derived displays, and suggest that such a framework provides insight into the foundational question of evolutionary biology-how to connect causes of withingeneration developmental variation with causes of amonggeneration and among-taxa variation and thus with causes of evolution?

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Control and Function of Carotenoid Coloration in Birds

Cited by 35 publications

References 0 publications

Serum antioxidant levels in wild birds vary in relation to diet, season, life history strategy, and species

Serum antioxidant levels in wild birds vary in relation to diet, season, life history strategy, and species

Sparrows use multiple status signals in winter social flocks

Evolvability and Robustness in Color Displays: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Data

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