Intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of shape variation in the albatross compound bill.

ABSTRACT: Albatross are the largest seabirds on Earth and have a suite of adaptations for their pelagic lifestyle. Rather than having a bill made of a single piece of keratin, Procellariiformes have a compound rhamphotheca, made of several joined plates. Drivers of the shape of the albatross bill have not been explored. Here we use three-dimensional scans of 61 upper bills from 12 species of albatross to understand whether intrinsic (species assignment & size) or extrinsic (diet) factors predict bill shape. Diet is a significant predictor of bill shape with coarse dietary categories providing higher R² values than dietary proportion data. We also find that of the intrinsic factors, species assignment accounts for ten times more of the variation than size (72% versus 6.8%) and that

SUBMITTER: Tyler J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10427816 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature