Predation and the Evolution of Island Bird Plumage Colouration: Experimental Insights from Island and Mainland Environments https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.31.703000v1
1/ 🧵 I'm at #BOUasm25 A day at the museum to talk about using natural history collections to build inclusive community.
Natural history #museums are undergoing a renaissance of novel research.
However -who has access to collections? -who is being left out of biodiversity research?
#ornithology
https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.70144
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Work by our team: @raquelponti.bsky.social, @anavleitao.bsky.social, @claire-doutrelant.bsky.social, Rita Covas.
We thank Pepijn Kamminga @naturalis.bsky.social, Paul Sweet @amnh.org, & Robert Prys-Jones @nhm-london.bsky.social who kindly supported our visits to the museums.
TY! #BOUasm25
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These results reveal a global pattern of morphological adaptation in island birds. Key ecological factors such as predation and competition play a central role in shaping these evolutionary changes.
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We also found that island bird evolved longer tarsi than their mainland ancestors but shorter in presence of predators and competitors
5/8
We found that island endemics evolved more rounded wings than their mainland counterparts.
4/8
We took measurements of wing and tarsus length from museum specimens 🏛️and from AVONET.
We used Birdlife species distribution maps to calculate the overlapping competitors and predators’ species per each focal one.
We implemented Bayesian Phylogenetic mixed models to test our hypothesis.
3/8
We analysed pairs of endemic island birds and their closest mainland relatives to ask: how does insularity affect locomotion-related traits and what role do predator and competitor diversity play in shaping these traits?
2/8
Island biotas experience unique conditions, that foster unique evolutionary patterns, often markedly different from their continental ancestors.
Some of these patterns are particularly well-known, such as body size evolution “island rule”, while changes in body shape remain understudied.
1/8
Island environments drive unique evolutionary changes in birds. 🌴🐦
At #BOUasm25, we’re sharing our global 🌍 study using museum collections to uncover how living on islands influences the evolution of locomotion traits.
Our paper 👉 doi.org/10.1111%2Fge...
#IslandBirds #Ornithology
We’re back! 😄
We‘re kicking off session 2 online with Mary Caswell Stoddard for her keynote “Feathers and eggs: leveraging ornithological collections to explore the evolution of colour, pattern and structure in the avian world” 🪺
Gavin Thomas joins us as Chair.
#BOUasm25 #ornithology #eggs
@claire-doutrelant.bsky.social and Rita Covas
Morphological Evolution in Island Birds Is Associated With More Terrestrial Lifestyles and a Lower Number of Raptors and Intra‐Family Competitors - 2025, Global Ecology and Biogeography
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
@raquelponti.bsky.social @anavleitao.bsky.social
New work out from our @islandbirdproject.bsky.social team lead by @raquelponti.bsky.social
We will be presenting this at the upcoming conference #BOUasm25
"A day at the museum: collections-based
ornithological research in a changing world" on BlueSky, 18th of Nov.
*** Academic BFD alert ***
We just published a new global bird phylogeny. It synthesizes the work of thousands of researchers before us, and it will grow and improve over time. @snacktavish.bsky.social @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
A birdy & traity thread...
What can morphological form tell us, if anything, about ecological function?
Our paper out today in @NatureEcoEvo asks this question from the perspective of ecological niches and convergent adaptation of bird...
New funding for our team!
Raquel Ponti @raquelponti.bsky.social is a #MSCA postdoctoral research at BIOPOLIS, Portugal, studying general patterns of morphological evolution in endemic island birds, and the mechanisms involved. 🦜🏝️
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Ana Leitão @anavleitao.bsky.social is a MSCA postdoctoral researcher at #BIOPOLIS. Her work has been focused in understanding the evolution of elaborate (or lack of) traits such as plumage colors and bird song, in both female and male birds. 🪶🐦
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Claire Doutrelant is a senior researcher at CEFE, Montpellier, with especial interest in the impact of sexual and social evolution on islands signals (both male songs and male and female colors). 🎨🎶
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Rita Covas, principal researcher at BIOPOLIS, Portugal investigates adaptation patterns to island environments, focusing on the evolution of reproductive life histories, #sociality, immunity, and morphology in island birds, among other interests. 🏝️🦤
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Adobe Stock/ jittawit.21
Happy #WomenInScience Day !
What better day to introduce our incredible core team—powered by four women! 💪✨
#WomenInSTEM
See here 1/5 👇🧵
Global bioacoustics dataset ! 🎶🦜
WABAD, the World Annotated Bird Acoustic Dataset
5,044 min of annotated bird vocalizations, 1,147 species, 70 sites 🌍 across 27 countries & 13 biomes
Open-access for AI training & conservation research
👉 by C. Pérez-Granados et al.
doi.org/10.21203/rs....
🌐🧪🌍🦤🪶
Our first Funk lecture of the new year is tomorrow! For more information and to register please visit our website: www.biogeography.org/news/news/gh...
[please share widely!]
We have two PhD positions available at the Swedish Museum of Natural History:
[Position 1] Birds, hybridization, genomes, island biology, biogeography, sexual selection 🦚, w/ me, Knud Jønsson, Martin Iredstedt and @stelkens.bsky.social et al
recruit.visma.com/spa/public/a...
Check our website for current projects
www.islandbirdproject.com
We study evolution of birds on islands, particularly focusing on investigating the mechanisms underlying life history traits, colour, song, behaviour and morphology.
We examine questions from both ultimate and proximate perspectives and combine field and comparative work.
