Data/hora: 03/06/2024 18:09:28

Provedor de dados: | Revista Brasileira de Zoologia
País: | Brazil
Título: | Evolution of bill size in relation to body size in toucans and hornbills (Aves: Piciformes and Bucerotiformes)
Autores: | Hughes,Austin L.
Data: | 2014-06-01
Ano: | 2014
Palavras-chave: | Allometry; Heat dissipation; Ramphastidae.
Resumo: | Evidence that the bill of the Toco Toucan, Ramphastos toco Statius Muller, 1776, has a specialized role in heat dissipation suggests a new function for the large and light-weight bill of the toucan family (Piciformes: Ramphastidae). A prediction of this hypothesis is that bill length in toucans will increase with body mass at a rate greater than the isometric expectation. This hypothesis was tested in a phylogenetic context with measurements of skeletal elements in adult males of 21 toucan species. In these species, 64.3% of variance in relative skeletal measurements was accounted for by the contrast between bill and body size. Maxilla length and depth increased with body mass at a greater than isometric rate relative to both body mass and other linear skeletal measures. By contrast, no such trend was seen in a parallel analysis of 24 hornbill species (Bucerotiformes), sometimes considered ecological equivalents of toucans. The unique relationship between bill size and body mass in toucans supports the hypothesis that the evolution of a heat dissipation function has been a persistent theme of bill evolution in toucans.
Tipo: | Info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Idioma: | Inglês
Identificador: | http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1984-46702014000300007
Editor: | Sociedade Brasileira de Zoologia
Relação: | 10.1590/S1984-46702014000300007
Formato: | text/html
Fonte: | Zoologia (Curitiba)  v.31 n.3 2014
Fonte: | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess