Evolutionary drivers of seasonal plumage colours: colour change by moult correlates with sexual selection, predation risk and seasonality across passerines
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Some birds undergo seasonal colour change by moulting twice each year, typically alternating between a cryptic, non-breeding plumage and a conspicuous, breeding plumage ('seasonal plumage colours'). We test for potential drivers of the evolution of seasonal plumage colours in all passerines (N = 5901 species, c. 60% of all birds). Seasonal plumage colours are uncommon, having appeared on multiple occasions but more frequently lost during evolution. The trait is more common in small, ground-foraging species with polygynous mating systems, no paternal care and strong sexual dichromatism, suggesting it evolved under strong sexual selection and high predation risk. Seasonal plumage colours are also more common in species predicted to have seasonal breeding schedules, such as migratory birds and those living in seasonal climates. We propose that seasonal plumage colours have evolved to resolve a trade-off between the effects of natural and sexual selection on colouration, especially in seasonal environments.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".