Fruit color choices of captive Silvereyes (Zosterops lateralis)
Fruit color choices of captive Silvereyes (Zosterops lateralis)
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作者：
Puckey, HL;Lill, A;ODowd, DJ
肉质水果在自然界中有多种颜色，但以红色和黑色为主。解释水果颜色适应性意义的一种流行假设是，它会吸引传播种子的食果鸟类。我们介绍了澳大利亚南部重要的水果消费者银眼（Zosterops Lateralis），在鸟舍中可以选择人造水果（由明胶制成）和三种不同颜色（红色、黄色和白色）的实际水果（Rhagodia parabolica）。在人造水果和真实水果中，银眼都表现出对红色的强烈总体偏好。尽管个体鸟类对人造水果颜色的偏好不同，但它们都更喜欢红色的 R. parabolica 果实。真水果的消费率远高于人造水果，这可能与两种水果的特性差异有关。让银眼猴接受特定颜色的维持饮食 12 天也未能改变它们对红色水果的集体偏好。此外，对在果序之间或果序内提供颜色选择的人造果序的反应表明，无论呈现的空间格式如何，银眼都更喜欢红色水果。银眼的整体水果颜色偏好是基于色调而不是亮度的选择，但在相同的色调内，一些个体表现出对特定亮度水平的偏好。这些结果与水果颜色与鸟类食果有关的假设一致，并表明鸟类可以作为水果颜色的强选择剂。
Fleshy fruits occur in many colors in nature, but red and black predominate. One popular hypothesis to explain the adaptive significance of fruit coloration is that it attracts frugivorous birds that disperse seeds. We presented Silvereyes (Zosterops lateralis), important fruit consumers in southern Australia, with choices in the aviary between both artificial fruits (made from gelatin) and actual fruits (Rhagodia parabolica) of three different colors (red, yellow and white). Silvereyes exhibited a strong overall preference for red among both artificial and real fruits. Although individual birds varied in their color preferences for artificial fruits, all preferred the red fruits of R. parabolica. The consumption rate of real fruits was much greater than that of artificial fruits, which was probably attributable to differences in the characteristics of the two fruit types. Exposure of Silvereyes to a maintenance diet of a particular color for 12 days also failed to alter their collective preference for red fruits. Further, responses to artificial infructescences offering color choices either between or within infructescences showed that Silvereyes preferred red fruits regardless of the spatial format of presentation. The overall fruit color preferences of Silvereyes were based on selection of hue rather than brightness, but within the same hue, some individuals exhibited preferences for particular brightness levels. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that fruit color is related to avian frugivory and suggest that birds can act as strong selective agents on fruit color.