ArticleJournal of the Royal Society, Interface2021
Enhanced photothermal absorption in iridescent feathers.
Article in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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11 citing papers in PubMed, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- The link between colorfulness and extinction risk across the world's passerine birds.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2026Article
- Color and Near-Infrared Reflectance Covary in Distinct Ways Across Taxa.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- From melanogenesis to melanin technologies.Communications chemistry · 2025Review
- Spectral fingerprint of laser emission from rhodamine 6g infused male Indian Peafowl tail feathers.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Viewing conditions predict evolutionary diversity in avian plumage colour.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Transitions between colour mechanisms affect speciation dynamics and range distributions of birds.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- The flavour of grape colour: anthocyanin content tunes aroma precursor composition by altering the berry microenvironment.Journal of experimental botany · 2023Article
- The evolution of sexually dimorphic traits in ecological gradients: an interplay between natural and sexual selection in hummingbirds.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Pretty Cool Beetles: Can Manipulation of Visible and Near-Infrared Sunlight Prevent Overheating?Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2022Article
- Enhanced photothermal absorption in iridescent feathers.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The diverse colours of bird feathers are produced by both pigments and nanostructures, and can have substantial thermal consequences. This is because reflectance, transmittance and absorption of differently coloured tissues affect the heat loads acquired from solar radiation. Using reflectance measurements and heating experiments on sunbird museum specimens, we tested the hypothesis that colour and their colour producing mechanisms affect feather surface heating and the heat transferred to skin level. As predicted, we found that surface temperatures were strongly correlated with plumage reflectivity when exposed to a radiative heat source and, likewise, temperatures reached at skin level decreased with increasing reflectivity. Indeed, nanostructured melanin-based iridescent feathers (green, purple, blue) reflected less light and heated more than unstructured melanin-based colours (grey, brown, black), as well as olives, carotenoid-based colours (yellow, orange, red) and non-pigmented whites. We used optical and heat modelling to test if differences in nanostructuring of melanin, or the bulk melanin content itself, better explains the differences between melanin-based feathers. These models showed that the greater melanin content and, to a lesser extent, the shape of the melanosomes explain the greater photothermal absorption in iridescent feathers. Our results suggest that iridescence can increase heat loads, and potentially alter birds' thermal balance.
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