Quail eggs in artificial nests change their coloration when exposed to ambient conditions: implication for studies on nest predation.

ABSTRACT: Quail eggs have been widely used in field experiments, mainly to study factors associated with the risk of nest predation. Some shortcomings of using quail eggs in this type of study have been previously addressed (e.g., these eggs might be too big for some predators of eggs of small birds). Here, we show experimental evidence of another shortcoming of the use of these eggs in field experiments. Quail eggs exposed to sunlight rapidly faded in colour after three days, both in the visible and UV spectra, and this change was related to the amount of solar radiation received. This caused changes in the camouflage of the eggs, which may be perceived by predators with different visual systems (dichromatic, trichromatic, and tetrachromatic (for both violet- and UV-sensitive species)). Therefore,

SUBMITTER: Linan Cembrano G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8269738 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature