Climate underpins continent-wide patterns of carotenoid-based feather color consistent with Gloger’s observations

Animal coloration has long been predicted to vary across geographic and climatic gradients in accordance with a longstanding ecogeographical rule. But further to his widely supported predictions that melanin pigmentation increases towards the Equator, Gloger observed that reds and yellows are more vivid in warm regions and thus more prevalent at lower latitudes, a prediction supported further by Görnitz who suggested these colors would be more intense in areas with higher rainfall. Yet, studies of the associations between geography or climate and carotenoid-based plumage coloration to test these observations at a continental scale are scarce. Here, we investigated the extent to which yellow and red feather color vary according to these hypotheses in Pogoniulus tinkerbirds with distributions across sub-Saharan Africa. We tested first for associations of feather color with geography along latitudinal or elevational gradients; and then for associations with the climatic factors of rainfall..., , , # Climate underpins continent-wide patterns of carotenoid-based feather color consistent with Gloger’s observations

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5tb2rbpdt](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5tb2rbpdt)

## Description of the data and file structure

This README file was generated on 2025-02-10 by Sifiso M. Lukhele

**Overview**

This supplementary dataset contains data to reproduce the results of our research paper. It contains metadata that includes localities of museum specimens and computed color variables with reflectance spectra measured from the belly, breast, rump, and crown patches of Pogoniulus* tinkerbirds.

### Files and variables

#### File: Lukhele\_et\_al\_2025\_PogoniulusMuseumData\_ColorVariation.xlsx

**Description:** 

##### Variables

* Brightness - computed as the mean percentage reflectance over the entire reflectance spectrum for the measured feather surface (mean brightness: B2 in pavo)
* Carotenoid chroma (carotenoid chroma: S9 in pavo) - which quantifies the contr...,