ArticleCommunications biology2022
Hummingbird plumage color diversity exceeds the known gamut of all other birds.
Article in Communications biology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Review
- How barbule orientation drives iridescent coloration in Coeligena hummingbirds.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Article
- The evolution of sexually dimorphic traits in ecological gradients: an interplay between natural and sexual selection in hummingbirds.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Hummingbird plumage color diversity exceeds the known gamut of all other birds.Communications biology · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A color gamut quantitatively describes the diversity of a taxon's integumentary coloration as seen by a specific organismal visual system. We estimated the plumage color gamut of hummingbirds (Trochilidae), a family known for its diverse barbule structural coloration, using a tetrahedral avian color stimulus space and spectra from a taxonomically diverse sample of 114 species. The spectra sampled occupied 34.2% of the total diversity of colors perceivable by hummingbirds, which suggests constraints on their plumage color production. However, the size of the hummingbird color gamut is equivalent to, or greater than, the previous estimate of the gamut for all birds. Using the violet cone type visual system, our new data for hummingbirds increases the avian color gamut by 56%. Our results demonstrate that barbule structural color is the most evolvable plumage coloration mechanism, achieving unique, highly saturated colors with multi-reflectance peaks.
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