Prey plumage adaptation against falcon attack

Alberto Palleroni (), Cory T. Miller, Marc Hauser and Peter Marler
Additional contact information
Alberto Palleroni: Primate Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Harvard University
Cory T. Miller: Laboratory of Auditory Neurophysiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Marc Hauser: Primate Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Harvard University
Peter Marler: Laboratory of Animal Communication, University of California

Nature, 2005, vol. 434, issue 7036, 973-974

Abstract: Abstract Several plumage types are found in feral pigeons (Columba livia), but one type imparts a clear survival advantage during attacks by the swiftest of all predators — the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus)1,2. Here we use quantitative field observations and experiments to demonstrate both the selective nature of the falcon's choice of prey and the effect of plumage coloration on the survival of feral pigeons. This plumage colour is an independently heritable trait3 that is likely to be an antipredator adaptation against high-speed attacks in open air space.

Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/434973b Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:434:y:2005:i:7036:d:10.1038_434973b

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/434973b

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().