A continued role for signaling functions in the early evolution of feathers

作者：Ruxton Graeme D^*; Persons W Scott IV; Currie Philip J

来源：Evolution, 2017, 71(3): 797-799.

DOI：10.1111/evo.13178

• Bristles
• down
• evolution of birds
• feathered dinosaurs
• flight
• plumage
• thermoregulation

Persons and Currie (2015) argued against either flight, thermoregulation, or signaling as a functional benefit driving the earliest evolution of feathers; rather, they favored simple feathers having an initial tactile sensory function, which changed to a thermoregulatory function as density increased. Here, we explore the relative merits of early simple feathers that may have originated as tactile sensors progressing instead toward a signaling, rather than (or in addition to) a thermoregulatory function. We suggest that signaling could act in concert with a sensory function more naturally than could thermoregulation. As such, the dismissal of a possible signaling function and the presumption that an initial sensory function led directly to a thermoregulatory implicit in the title "bristles before down") are premature.

• 出版日期2017-3