ArticleBiology letters2025
Pigment contribution to feather mass depends on melanin form and is restricted to approximately 25.
Article in Biology letters, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 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
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Photobleaching shapes the expression of plumage phenotypes.Biology open · 2026Article
- Pigment contribution to feather mass depends on melanin form and is restricted to approximately 25.Biology letters · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Feathers are lightweight keratinous structures that have promoted the evolutionary success of birds by facilitating flight. Complex feathers, however, are believed to have evolved in response to visual functions, meaning a relevant role of pigmentation in feather evolution. The most common pigments in birds are melanins, large polymers synthesized at feather follicles, which thus have the potential to contribute significantly to the mass of feathers and compromise their lightweight nature. This contribution has never been quantified. Here, we leveraged a melanin extraction method to measure the mass contribution of different melanin forms to feathers from 19 species of birds, mainly golden eagles
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