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Frequency dispersion reveals chromophore diversity and colour-tuning mechanism in parrot feathers
Variation in animal coloration is often viewed as the result of chemically distinct pigments conferring different hues. The role of molecular environment on hue tends to be overlooked as analyses are mostly performed on free pigments extracted from the integument. Here we analysed psittacofulvin pig...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society Publishing
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6083696/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30109049 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172010 |
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author | Barnsley, Jonathan E. Tay, Elliot J. Gordon, Keith C. Thomas, Daniel B. |
author_facet | Barnsley, Jonathan E. Tay, Elliot J. Gordon, Keith C. Thomas, Daniel B. |
author_sort | Barnsley, Jonathan E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Variation in animal coloration is often viewed as the result of chemically distinct pigments conferring different hues. The role of molecular environment on hue tends to be overlooked as analyses are mostly performed on free pigments extracted from the integument. Here we analysed psittacofulvin pigments within parrot feathers to explore whether the in situ organization of pigments may have an effect on hue. Resonance Raman spectra from a red region of a yellow-naped amazon Amazona auropalliata tail feather show frequency dispersion, a phenomenon that is related to the presence of a range of molecular conformations (and multiple chromophores) in the pigment, whereas spectra from a yellow region on the same feather do not show the same evidence for multiple chromophores. Our findings are consistent with non-isomeric psittacofulvin pigments behaving as a single chromophore in yellow feather barbs, which implies that psittacofulvins are dispersed into a structurally disordered mixture in yellow feathers compared with red feathers. Frequency dispersion in red barbs may instead indicate that pigments are structurally organized through molecule–molecule interactions. Major differences in the hues of parrot feathers are thus associated with differences in the organization of pigments within feathers. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6083696 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | The Royal Society Publishing |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-60836962018-08-14 Frequency dispersion reveals chromophore diversity and colour-tuning mechanism in parrot feathers Barnsley, Jonathan E. Tay, Elliot J. Gordon, Keith C. Thomas, Daniel B. R Soc Open Sci Chemistry Variation in animal coloration is often viewed as the result of chemically distinct pigments conferring different hues. The role of molecular environment on hue tends to be overlooked as analyses are mostly performed on free pigments extracted from the integument. Here we analysed psittacofulvin pigments within parrot feathers to explore whether the in situ organization of pigments may have an effect on hue. Resonance Raman spectra from a red region of a yellow-naped amazon Amazona auropalliata tail feather show frequency dispersion, a phenomenon that is related to the presence of a range of molecular conformations (and multiple chromophores) in the pigment, whereas spectra from a yellow region on the same feather do not show the same evidence for multiple chromophores. Our findings are consistent with non-isomeric psittacofulvin pigments behaving as a single chromophore in yellow feather barbs, which implies that psittacofulvins are dispersed into a structurally disordered mixture in yellow feathers compared with red feathers. Frequency dispersion in red barbs may instead indicate that pigments are structurally organized through molecule–molecule interactions. Major differences in the hues of parrot feathers are thus associated with differences in the organization of pigments within feathers. The Royal Society Publishing 2018-07-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6083696/ /pubmed/30109049 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172010 Text en © 2018 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Chemistry Barnsley, Jonathan E. Tay, Elliot J. Gordon, Keith C. Thomas, Daniel B. Frequency dispersion reveals chromophore diversity and colour-tuning mechanism in parrot feathers |
title | Frequency dispersion reveals chromophore diversity and colour-tuning mechanism in parrot feathers |
title_full | Frequency dispersion reveals chromophore diversity and colour-tuning mechanism in parrot feathers |
title_fullStr | Frequency dispersion reveals chromophore diversity and colour-tuning mechanism in parrot feathers |
title_full_unstemmed | Frequency dispersion reveals chromophore diversity and colour-tuning mechanism in parrot feathers |
title_short | Frequency dispersion reveals chromophore diversity and colour-tuning mechanism in parrot feathers |
title_sort | frequency dispersion reveals chromophore diversity and colour-tuning mechanism in parrot feathers |
topic | Chemistry |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6083696/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30109049 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172010 |
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