Figure 2.

A reconstruction of the evolutionary history of carotenoid pigmentation in feathers. The likelihood that ancestors could display carotenoid feather pigments has been reconstructed using ‘hidden’ transition rates in three rate categories (AIC = 4002.5, 11 transition rates) [33]. The POEs (defined in Material and methods) for carotenoid feather pigmentation are identified by red circles. Branches are coloured according to the proportional likelihood of carotenoid-consistent colours at the preceding node. Solid purple points indicate species for which carotenoid feather pigments were confirmed present from chemical analysis; open black points represent those for which where carotenoids were not detected in feathers after chemical analysis. Supertree phylogeny from [21]. (Online version in colour.)