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Published on: August 22, 2018
The biology of color
Innes C Cuthill1, William L Allen2, Kevin Arbuckle2
1School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TQ, UK.
Abstract:
Coloration mediates the relationship between an organism and its environment in important ways, including social signaling, antipredator defenses, parasitic exploitation, thermoregulation, and protection from ultraviolet light, microbes, and abrasion. Methodological breakthroughs are accelerating knowledge of the processes underlying both the production of animal coloration and its perception, experiments are advancing understanding of mechanism and function, and measurements of color collected noninvasively and at a global scale are opening windows to evolutionary dynamics more generally. Here we provide a roadmap of these advances and identify hitherto unrecognized challenges for this multi- and interdisciplinary field.
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