DOI: 10.5061/dryad.jq2bvq8jg
title: Data from: Colourful urban birds: Urban-tolerant birds have more elaborate colours, more blue and less brown

description: Urbanization, one of the most extreme and rapidly-expanding human-induced
 landscape changes, imposes multiple challenges to wildlife. Studies in
 urban ecology have explored how urbanization affects organisms. However,
 still little is known about the relationship between urbanization and
 animal coloration, even though colours fulfil key functions such as
 camouflage, signalling, and thermoregulation. We use a global bird
 database on urban tolerance and combine it with quantitative colour
 estimates to test whether urban-tolerant species differ in colour from
 less urban-tolerant ones. Our interspecific comparative analyses revealed
 that urban-tolerant birds are more likely to have blue, dark grey and
 black colours and less likely to have brown or yellow colours. However,
 after statistically accounting for phylogenetic relatedness, only the
 effects of blue and brown colours remained significant. Overall,
 urban-tolerant species have more elaborated colours, but we found no
 association between urbanization and sexual dichromatism. Additionally, we
 performed assemblage-level analyses to test whether urban assemblages are
 less-colour diverse, a key prediction of the urban colour homogenization
 hypothesis. Our results did not support this hypothesis: after accounting
 for species richness, urban bird communities were more, rather than less,
 colour diverse. Thus, our results suggest that plumage colours are part of
 an urban-associated syndrome. Cities may select against species with
 colours that provide camouflage in natural settings, such as brown,
 because these colours are no longer cryptic in the urban environment.
 Increased colour elaboration in urban settings may also be related to
 reduced risk of predation by visual predators. These effects were stronger
 in females, although sexual dichromatism was not significantly correlated
 with urban-tolerance. Our findings clearly show that species that are
 prone to live in urban environments differ in colour from those that avoid
 cities.   
description: # Global dataset of bird coloration and traits
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.jq2bvq8jg](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.jq2bvq8jg) This dataset contains variables separated in two different Excel sheets: species level and assemblage level with the readme containing the information of the different variables in each file. ## Description of the data and file structure **Variables and Description** phylo.name: scientific name matching taxonomy of www.birdtree.org urban.slope: urban success index: slope of regression, log(Abundance+0.1)~urbanization level urban.diff.maxmin: urban success index: log(Abundance at maximum level of urbanization +0.1) - log(Abundance at minimum level of urbanization +0.1) [Note that in this case the maximum or minimum levels of urbanization are not always 5 and 1 respectively] urban.diff.12vs345: urban success index : mean(log(Abundance at level of urbanization 5 +0.1), log(Abundance at level of urbanization 4 +0.1), log(Abundance at level of urbanization 3 +0.1)) – mean(log(Abundance at level of urbanization 1 +0.1), log(Abundance at level of urbanization 2 +0.1)) urban.diff.123vs45: urban success index: mean(log(Abundance at level of urbanization 5 +0.1), log(Abundance at level of urbanization 4 +0.1)) – mean(log(Abundance at level of urbanization 1 +0.1), log(Abundance at level of urbanization 2 +0.1), log(Abundance at level of urbanization 3 +0.1)) urban.diff.1vs5:urban success index: log(Abundance at level of urbanization 5 +0.1) - log(Abundance at level of urbanization 1 +0.1) [In this case the maximum or minimum levels of urbanization are always 5 and 1 respectively] region: name of city where urban tolerances were estimated black_m: proportion of black plumage in males black_f: proportion of black plumage in females white_m: proportion of white plumage in males white_f: proportion of white plumage in females blue_m: proportion of blue plumage in males blue_f: proportion of blue plumage in females red_m: proportion of red plumage in males red_f: proportion of red plumage in females green_m: proportion of green plumage in males green_f: proportion of green plumage in females purple_m: proportion of purple plumage in males purple_f: proportion of purple plumage in females yellow_m: proportion of yellow plumage in males yellow_f: proportion of yellow plumage in females grey.dark_m: proportion of dark grey plumage in males grey.dark_f: proportion of dark grey plumage in females grey.light_m: proportion of light grey plumage in males grey.light_f: proportion of light grey plumage in females brown.dark_m: proportion of dark brown plumage in males brown.dark_f: proportion of dark brown plumage in females brown.light_m: proportion of light brown plumage in males brown.light_f: proportion of light brown plumage in females rufous_m: proportion of rufous plumage in males rufous_f: proportion of rufous plumage in females n.loci_m colour diversity: number of colour loci in males n.loci_f colour diversity: number of colour loci in females chull_m colour diversity: convex hull colour volume in males (volume in CIELAB colour space) chull_f colour diversity: convex hull colour volume in females (volume in CIELAB colour space) d.cen_m colour diversity: colour span in males (distance in CIELAB colour space) d.cen_f colour diversity: colour span in females (distance in CIELAB colour space) elaboration_m colour elaboration: vividness in males (distance in CIELAB colour space) elaboration_f colour elaboration: vividness in females (distance in CIELAB colour space) maleness.score_m colour elaboration: maleness score in males (%) maleness.score_f colour elaboration: maleness score in females (%) openness vegetation openness. Values ranging from 1 (closed habitat) to 4 (open habitat) ground.nest binary, nests on ground yes=1, no=0 cav.rock.nest binary, nests in cavities or rocks yes=1, no=0 Diet.5Cat Diet categories: Frui/Nect, Omnivore, Invertebrate, VertFishScav, PlantSeed ForStrat.ground proportion of time foraging on ground (%) BodyMass.Value body mass (g) territoriality degree of territoriality, 0=non territorial, 1=seasonal territorial, 2=year round territorial sex.sel.m degree of social polygyny (values from 0 to 5 indicating the strength of social polygyny on males) sex.sel.f degree of social polyandry (values from 0 to 5 indicating the strength of social polyandry on females) maleness.dich sexual dichromatism in maleness (difference between maleness.score_m and maleness.score_f) elab.dich sexual dichromatism in vividness (difference between elaboration_m and elaboration_f) Assemblage level: the variables used for the analyses at the assemblage level Missing values are indicated as NA **Variables and Description** region name of city where urban tolerances were estimated urban.level level of urbanization from 1-5 n.sp number of species in each assemblage chull convex hull volume of bird colours present in assemblage n.loci number of colour loci of bird colours present in assemblage d.cen distance to assemblage centroid of bird colours present in assemblage (distance in CIELAB colour space)