ArticleNature communications2023
The global importance and interplay of colour-based protective and thermoregulatory functions in frogs.
Article in Nature communications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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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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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Global Color Variation in Giant HornetInsects · 2026Article
- Seasonal climatic variability shapes immune responses and infection risks in the common bluetail damselfly.Oecologia · 2026Article
- Citizen science data reveals widespread sexual dichromatism in the European fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra).BMC ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- High melanosome diversity exhibits weak correlation with color and environmental variables in the early evolution of therian mammals.Science advances · 2025Article
- Structural background of intraspecific color polymorphism and the driver of geographic patterns in a shining leaf chafer.Frontiers in zoology · 2025Article
- Circadian Rhythm of Body Color Change in the Juvenile Chinese Giant Salamander (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Fish-inspired dynamic charging for ultrafast self-protective solar-thermal energy storage.Science advances · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Small-scale studies have shown that colour lightness variation can have important physiological implications in ectotherms, with darker species having greater heating rates, as well as protection against pathogens and photooxidative damage. Using data for 41% (3059) of all known frog and toad species (Anura) from across the world, we reveal ubiquitous and strong clines of decreasing colour lightness towards colder regions and regions with higher pathogen pressure and UVB radiation. The relative importance of pathogen resistance is higher in the tropics and that of thermoregulation is higher in temperate regions. The results suggest that these functions influence colour lightness evolution in anurans and filtered for more similarly coloured species under climatic extremes, while their concurrent importance resulted in high within-assemblage variation in productive regions. Our findings indicate three important functions of colour lightness in anurans - thermoregulation, pathogen and UVB protection - and broaden support for colour lightness-environment relationships in ectotherms.
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