barnswallow_brightness: Barn Swallow Plumage Brightness and Mate Selection

In ecoteach: Educational Datasets for Ecology and Agriculture

Barn Swallow Plumage Brightness and Mate Selection

Description

This dataset contains information on plumage brightness measurements for North American barn swallows (Hirundo rustica erythrogaster) and their mating patterns. The data includes measurements of belly and breast brightness for social pairs and extra-pair mates. This dataset was used to study assortative mating patterns in barn swallows, investigating how plumage coloration affects mate selection both within social pairs and through extra-pair fertilizations.

Usage

barnswallow_brightness

Format

A data frame with 19 rows and 7 variables:

MaleID

Band ID for the focal male

PairID

Band ID for the female social mate

EPID

Band ID for the extra-pair mate

PairB_bright

Belly brightness for the social male (unitless measurement of reflectance)

PairR_bright

Breast brightness for the social male (unitless measurement of reflectance)

EPB_bright

Belly brightness for the extra-pair male (unitless measurement of reflectance)

EPR_bright

Breast brightness for the extra-pair male (unitless measurement of reflectance)

Source

Morosse, Omar, Tsunekage, Toshi, Kenny-Duddela, Heather, Schield, Drew, Keller, Kayleigh, Safran, Rebecca, & Levin, Iris (2025). North American barn swallows pair, mate, and interact assortatively. Dryad Digital Repository. \Sexpr[results=rd]{tools:::Rd_expr_doi("10.5061/DRYAD.1G1JWSV8G")}

Examples

# Load the dataset
data(barnswallow_brightness)

# Basic exploration
head(barnswallow_brightness)
summary(barnswallow_brightness)

# Compare brightness between social and extra-pair males
boxplot(barnswallow_brightness$PairB_bright, barnswallow_brightness$EPB_bright,
        names = c("Social Male", "Extra-pair Male"),
        main = "Comparison of Belly Brightness",
        ylab = "Brightness")
        
# Correlation between social and extra-pair male brightness
plot(barnswallow_brightness$PairB_bright, barnswallow_brightness$EPB_bright,
     main = "Correlation between Social and Extra-pair Male Brightness",
     xlab = "Social Male Belly Brightness",
     ylab = "Extra-pair Male Belly Brightness")
abline(lm(EPB_bright ~ PairB_bright, data = barnswallow_brightness), col = "red")

ecoteach documentation built on June 29, 2025, 5:08 p.m.