Figure 2

Egg contrast predicted likelihood of plover and courser egg survival, dependent on background contrast.

Clutches that survived to hatching better matched their backgrounds with respect to contrast, than those that were depredated. The dashed identity line shows where egg contrast would match background contrast. Panels (A–D) give extreme examples of contrast matching, with corresponding points labelled on the graph: (A) Temminck’s courser with the lowest background contrast and low egg contrast (note that this egg is a poor luminance match, which was not found to predict clutch survival); (B) three-banded plover with the highest background contrast and high egg contrast; (C) bronze-winged courser with the highest egg contrast and medium background contrast; (D) wattled plover with the lowest egg contrast of all depredated nests and medium background contrast.