A continued role for signaling functions in the early evolution of feathers |
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| Authors: | Graeme D. Ruxton W. Scott Persons IV Philip J. Currie |
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| Affiliation: | 1. School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom;2. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada |
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| Abstract: | 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 function (implicit in the title “bristles before down”) are premature. |
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| Keywords: | Bristles down evolution of birds feathered dinosaurs flight plumage thermoregulation |
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