La mayor parte de los estudios realizados hasta el momento sobre el complejo de páramos de Chingaza se han desarrollado principalmente en las zonas cercanas a Bogotá y algunos sectores del Parque Nacional Natural Chingaza. El objetivo del presente estudio fue caracterizar la zona de transición bosque-páramo en el complejo. Realizamos 5 transectos altitudinales en áreas con buen estado de conservación, en los que se obtuvieron 11,588 registros de ocurrencias y 1382 registros de rasgos funcionales de vegetación, edafofauna, anfibios y aves. Registramos dos especies de plantas en estado vulnerable (VU) (Hedyosmum parvifolium y Centronia brachycera) y un nuevo taxón endémico para este complejo de páramo (Puya loca). Análisis preliminares de los datos presentados sugieren variación en estructura biótica a lo largo del gradiente, y cambios en la composición de las comunidades. Con la información presentada se logró identificar la zona de transición entre el bosque altoandino y el páramo por medio de diversos atributos fisonómicos, florísticos, ecológicos y corológicos. Palabras clave. Alta montaña. Ecotono. Gradiente altitudinal. Norte de los Andes. Rasgo funcional.

Colombia is the country with the highest bird diversity in the world. Despite active research in ornithology, compelling morphological information of most bird species is still sparse. However, morphological information is the baseline to understand how species respond to environmental variation and how ecosystems respond to species loss. As part of a national initiative, the Instituto Alexander von Humboldt in collaboration with 12 Colombian institutions and seven biological collections, measured up to 15 morphological traits of 9,892 individuals corresponding to 606 species: 3,492 from individuals captured in field and 6,400 from museum specimens. Species measured are mainly distributed in high Andean forest, páramo, and wetland ecosystems. Seven ornithological collections in Colombia and 18 páramo complexes throughout Colombia were visited from 2013 to 2015. The morphological traits involved measurements from bill (total and exposed culmen, bill width and depth), wing (length, area, wingspan, and the distance between longest primary and longest secondary), tail (length and shape), tarsus (length), hallux (length and claw hallux), and mass. The number of measured specimens per species was variable, ranging from 1 to 321 individuals with a median of four individuals per species. Overall, this database gathered morphological information for >30% of Colombian bird diversity. No copyright, proprietary, or cost restrictions apply; the data should be cited appropriately when used.

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Members of the avian family Pipridae (manakins) have served as a model system for studies aimed at understanding cooperation among individuals, traits involved in sexual selection and the evolution of female preferences. These studies rely on a detailed natural history baseline, yet multiple manakin taxa remain unstudied, precluding comparative analyses and assessment of geographical variation. The Blue‐backed Manakin Chiroxiphia pareola is a widely distributed species with four recognized subspecies; however, most published information on display behaviour, social organization and vocalizations are derived from an island population of one subspecies, Chiroxiphia pareola atlantica. To describe the social organization and patterns of activity of the subspecies C. p. napensis, we studied a population in eastern Ecuador and collected data from seven display areas or leks within the Tiputini Biodiversity Station. We used focal observations, camera traps and automatic song recorders to collect information for the field seasons from January to March 2013 and video cameras from February to March 2014. Males were active most of the day with a peak in activity at noon. Display areas were occupied by one to five males, ranging from > 2 to > 18 years old. The vocal repertoire included duet song displays and a variety of calls. We provide sonograms for all six observed vocalizations, including two previously unrecorded vocalizations for the species, and comment on the possible behavioural context of each vocalization. We describe five distinct display elements and the dance display behaviour, and highlight differences relative to other species of the genus. The first part of the dance display involved cooperative dancing, whereas the second part was a solo display, usually performed by alpha males. Our work reveals some differences between C. p. napensis and C. p. atlantica, such as a possible aggressive interaction between males of different ages and hierarchical status that has not been reported before and the apparent absence of mechanical wing sounds in C. p. napensis. The data reported here help advance our knowledge of the evolution of display behaviour among manakins.

Sexual selection drives the evolution of many spectacular animal displays that we see in nature. Yet, how selection combines and elaborates different signal traits remains unclear. Here, we investigate this issue by testing for correlated evolution between head plumage colour and drumming behaviour in woodpeckers. These signals function in the context of mate choice and male–male competition, and they may appear to a receiver as a single multimodal display. We test for such correlations in males of 132 species using phylogenetic linear models, while considering the effect of habitat. We find that the plumage chromatic contrast is positively correlated with the speed of the drum, supporting the idea that species evolving more conspicuous plumage on their head also evolve faster drum displays. By contrast, we do not find evidence of correlated evolution between drum speed and head colour diversity, size of the head's red patch, or extent of the plumage achromatic contrast. Drum length was not correlated with any of the plumage coloration metrics. Lastly, we find no evidence that habitat acts as a strong selective force driving the evolution of head coloration or drumming elaboration. Coevolution between different signal modalities is therefore complex, and probably depends on the display components in question.