ArticleBiology letters2023
Birds are better at regulating heat loss through their legs than their bills: implications for body shape evolution in response to climate.
Article in Biology letters, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Body surface temperatures as biomarkers of physiological environmental adaptation in wild birds and mammals.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Pooled it
- Severe winter storms bring severe population changes.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Limited evidence that body size shrinking and shape-shifting alleviate thermoregulatory pressures in a warmer world.Communications biology · 2025Article
- What does infrared thermography tell us about the evolutionary potential of heat tolerance in endotherms?Evolution letters · 2025Article
- The role of plumage and heat dissipation areas in thermoregulation in doves.The Journal of experimental biology · 2025Article
- Latitudinal gradients and sex differences in morphology of the Black Oystercatcher (Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Selective effect of winter weather on a songbird's morphology depends on individual sex and winter condition.Oecologia · 2024Article
- Thermal Imaging as a Method to Indirectly Assess Peripheral Vascular Integrity and Tissue Viability in Veterinary Medicine: Animal Models and Clinical Applications.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Review
- Birds are better at regulating heat loss through their legs than their bills: implications for body shape evolution in response to climate.Biology letters · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Endotherms use their appendages-such as legs, tails, ears and bills-for thermoregulation by controlling blood flow to near-surface blood vessels, conserving heat when it is cold, and dissipating heat in hot conditions. Larger appendages allow greater heat dissipation, and appendage sizes vary latitudinally according to Allen's rule. However, little is known about the relative importance of different appendages for thermoregulation. We investigate physiological control of heat loss via bird bills and legs using infrared thermography of wild birds. Our results demonstrate that birds are less able to regulate heat loss via their bills than their legs. In cold conditions, birds lower their leg surface temperature to below that of their plumage surface, retaining heat at their core. In warm conditions, birds increase their leg surface temperature to above that of their plumage surface, expelling heat. By contrast, bill surface temperature remains approximately 2°C warmer than the plumage surface, indicating consistent heat loss under almost all conditions. Poorer physiological control of heat loss via bird bills likely entails stronger selection for shorter bills in cold climates. This could explain why bird bills show stronger latitudinal size clines than bird legs, with implications for predicting shape-shifting responses to climate change.
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