Is fitness affected by ring colour?

Many ecologists mark their free living study animals with the aim to collect knowledge on individual life histories. Yet, marking animals may affect life histories and it is important to quantify such effects. Literature on this subject is relatively rare, especially when it concerns the effect of bird rings. This is partly because control groups are often missing, since the rings were not applied with the goal to measure their effect on life histories. From studies in captivity there is evidence that the colour of rings may affect partner choice and in the field certain outstanding colours of rings may affect predation risk. Here we use data of an ongoing study of Great Tits Parus major to analyse whether the colour of rings fitted in different combinations to nestling Great Tits (day 14, n = 9818) affected their life histories in terms of natal dispersal, first year local recapture rate, breeding performance and second year local recapture rate. We measured reflectance spectra to quantify the brightness of the colour rings, and we used a human panel to judge the conspicuousness of the rings against a grey background. We found support for a positive effect of the conspicuousness, as judged by human observers, of the colour ring combination on local recapture rate, but not on natal dispersal suggesting that survival was affected. No effect was detected on breeding performance. The brightness of the rings did not explain variation in life history components. Although the effect of conspicuousness was statistically weak, the effect size is of potential biological importance. Life expectancy of individuals without conspicuous rings is estimated to be 28% shorter than for individuals with three conspicuous rings. Our result could have a considerable impact on life history studies where fitness measures are based on colour-marked bird populations. Colour of the colour rings will affect the variance of fitness estimates and may even bias the mean of fitness estimates when specific colours are used in specific periods, in specific environments or to mark particular categories of birds like year classes.