Passerine wing‐feather moult has been studied historically in terms of its intensity, duration, timing and extent. However, little is known about variation of wing‐moult phenotypes (i.e. the identity of moulted wing feathers in a given individual) within species, among moult episodes and in relation to passerine phylogeny. Here we studied 5373 wing‐moult cards from 285 Holarctic and 155 Neotropical passerine species. Variation of moult phenotypes, although high, was far below that expected by chance, and the same phenotypes were repeated among individuals within and among species, suggesting the existence of shared mechanisms of moult control. We successfully classified moult phenotypes according to nine moult patterns described in the literature and found an uneven distribution between the preformative and the prealternate moult. Moult patterns were phylogenetically conserved for the preformative but not for the prealternate moult. Our results suggest differential seasonal control of bird moult with preformative moults being associated with (evolutionarily conserved) somatic demands, whereas prealternate moults are probably associated with (rapidly evolving) signalling functions.

中文翻译：

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翼羽蜕变表型在形成性和交替性发作之间以及沿雀形目系统发育

从历史上已经研究了雀形的蜕皮在强度，持续时间，时间和范围方面。但是，关于物种内部，蜕变事件之间以及与雀形目系统发育的关系，人们对翅膀蜕变表型（即给定个体中的蜕变羽翼的身份）的变化知之甚少。在这里，我们研究了来自285种Holarctic和155种Neotropical Passerine物种的5373张侧翼换羽证。蜕皮表型的变化虽然很高，但远低于偶然的预期，并且在物种内部和物种之间的个体之间重复了相同的表型，这表明存在共同的蜕皮控制机制。我们成功地根据文献中描述的九种蜕皮模式对蜕皮表型进行了分类，发现在预制和蜕皮蜕皮之间分布不均。对于发育型，蜕变在系统发育上是保守的，但对于替代性的蜕皮，则不是。我们的结果表明，鸟类的家禽的季节性差异控制与预先形成的家禽与（进化上保守的）躯体需求相关，而初生的家禽可能与信号的功能（迅速发展）相关。