Disentangling urbanisation, climate effects and their interaction on ornamental colourations

Abstract

Urbanisation and climate change can both affect phenotype expression across taxa. Most evidence collected so far has focused on exploring these two phenomena on isolation. Currently, the combined effects of climate change and urbanisation remain underexplored, despite being among the greatest challenges faced by biodiversity. Here, we use a decade-long, individual-based study of urban and forest great tits (Parus major) to analyse urbanisation, climate and their interactive effects on yellow breast colouration, a carotenoid-based trait. We find that urban birds exhibit duller colourations than forest counterparts, being 10-20% less chromatic, with first-year birds and males being more negatively impacted by cities. Additionally, birds in the city are more sexually dichromatic than in the forest. Over the decade, colouration differences between habitats remain stable, following a similar quadratic temporal pattern. Finally, while climate has a weak effect on colouration, urban birds appear more sensitive to its influence than forest birds. Our results indicate urbanisation has a stronger impact than last decade climatic variation on great tit colouration, though both factors may interact. The heightened sensitivity of first-year birds and increased sexual dichromatism in cities may alter the strength of natural and sexual selection on this trait in urban environments.