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MACROECOLOGY

A colourful tropical world

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 6, pages 502–503 (2022)Cite this article

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A large dataset quantifying variation in bird colourfulness lends support to a long-hypothesized latitudinal diversity gradient in animal colouration.

The differences between tropical and temperate biological diversity and species richness, usually referred to as the latitudinal diversity gradient, are among the oldest recognized ecological and biogeographical patterns. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European naturalists such as von Humboldt, Wallace and Darwin were mesmerized by the diversity of forms, shapes and colours in the tropics. For instance, von Humboldt wrote that “ … the nearer we approach the tropics, the greater the increase in the variety of structure, grace of form, and mixture of colours, as also in perpetual youth and vigour of organic life” (from an 1850 translation1). The science of latitudinal diversity gradients has become well-established since the 1990s, but has predominantly focused on species richness patterns and there has been less subsequent exploration of von Humboldt’s observed ‘mixture of colours’. Writing in Nature Ecology & Evolution, Cooney et al.2 provide an unprecedented description of geographical patterns in colourfulness at the global scale.

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Fig. 1: Schematic of the main methodological steps for analysing latitudinal gradients in colourfulness in passerine birds worldwide.

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  1. Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Brazil

    José Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho

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  1. José Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho
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Correspondence to José Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho.

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Diniz-Filho, J.A.F. A colourful tropical world. Nat Ecol Evol 6, 502–503 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01696-0

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