Data from: The bright incubate at night: sexual dichromatism and adaptive incubation division in an open-nesting shorebird

Ornamentation of parents poses a high risk for offspring because it
reduces cryptic nest defence. Over a century ago, Wallace proposed that
sexual dichromatism enhances crypsis of open-nesting females although
subsequent studies found that dichromatism per se is not necessarily
adaptive. We tested whether reduced female ornamentation in a sexually
dichromatic species reduces the risk of clutch depredation and leads to
adaptive parental roles in the red-capped plover Charadrius ruficapillus,
a species with biparental incubation. Males had significantly brighter and
redder head coloration than females. During daytime, when visually
foraging predators are active, colour-matched model males incurred a
higher risk of clutch depredation than females, whereas at night there was
no difference in depredation risk between sexes. In turn, red-capped
plovers maintained a strongly diurnal/nocturnal division of parental care
during incubation, with males attending the nest largely at night when
visual predators were inactive and females incubating during the day. We
found support for Wallace's conclusion that reduced female
ornamentation provides a selective advantage when reproductive success is
threatened by visually foraging predators. We conclude that predators may
alter their prey's parental care patterns and therefore may affect
parental cooperation during care.