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Eurasian Collared Doves 1.6 km Apart Differed in Wing, Digit and Beak Measurements in Annaba

Eurasian collared dove perched in natural light
Research · Anatomy & morphology

Eurasian collared doves (Streptopelia decaocto) living only 1.6 kilometres apart within Annaba, Algeria, differed in several body measurements, according to a study published in 2026. Researchers compared 35 adult birds from a wooded cemetery with birds from a rooftop surrounded by a much more heavily urbanised area.

The team measured 13 morphological traits, body mass and two indices of body condition. Body condition here refers to the energy reserves an animal carries relative to its structural size, used as a rough indicator of its physical state rather than simply how large it is. Doves from the rooftop site had significantly smaller extended and folded wing measurements, digit length and beak length than birds from the wooded cemetery. Tarsus length and beak height also tended to be smaller, although those differences were only marginally significant.

Several measurements differed while body condition did not

Other measurements, including body mass, tail length, total body length, collar length and several bill and wing indices, did not differ significantly between the sites. The two groups also had similar body condition under both indices used by the researchers.

The authors place the result in the context of urban phenotypic differentiation—differences in observable body traits between groups living in different environments. Eurasian collared doves had colonised Annaba only about 20 years before the birds were sampled, yet some morphological differences were detectable between nearby urban environments. The study cannot show whether those differences arose through genetic change, developmental plasticity, diet or other environmental effects. With only 35 birds from two sites, the result documents fine-scale morphological differentiation rather than the mechanism producing it.

Sources and image credit

  1. Aouissi, H. A., Bezzalla, A., Kebaili, F. K., Bouslama, Z., & Frantz, A. (2026). Morphological differentiation at a restricted spatial scale in Eurasian collared doves Streptopelia decaocto within an Algerian city. Ethology Ecology & Evolution, 38(4), 487–504. https://doi.org/10.1080/03949370.2026.2649574Primary research article published online 20 April 2026. Thirty-five adult Eurasian collared doves from two sites 1.6 km apart in Annaba were compared for 13 morphological traits, body mass and two body-condition indices. Several wing, digit and beak measurements were smaller at the highly urbanised rooftop site, while body mass and body condition did not differ.

Image: Diego Delso / Wikimedia Commons — wild Eurasian collared dove photographed at Almuradiel, Ciudad Real, Spain, 19 December 2021; representative species image, not a bird from the Annaba study; cropped to 16:9. · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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