## example from ?vegan::rarecurve
library(vegan)
data(BCI)
S <- specnumber(BCI)
(raremax <- min(rowSums(BCI)))
Srare <- rarefy(BCI, raremax)
plot(S, Srare, xlab = "Observed No. of Species", ylab = "Rarefied No. of Species")
abline(0, 1)
rarecurve(BCI, step = 20, sample = raremax, col = "blue", cex = 0.6)

# using new function
plot(S, Srare, xlab = "Observed No. of Species", ylab = "Rarefied No. of Species")
abline(0, 1)
rarec(BCI, step = 20, sample = raremax, cex = 0.6)

The problem is in these lines in vegan::rarecurve
for (ln in seq_len(length(out))) {
N <- attr(out[[ln]], "Subsample")
lines(N, out[[ln]], ...)
where each line is made individually by lines which in turn is only taking the first color it sees in the color argument passed by ..., which is blue in your case. After applying a simple hack to this loop:
for (ln in seq_len(length(out))) {
N <- attr(out[[ln]], "Subsample")
lines(N, out[[ln]], col = cols[ln], ...)
and specifying a new argument, cols, in the rarecurve function rather than passing col onto plot and lines:
cols = c(rep('red', nrow(x) / 2), rep('blue', nrow(x) / 2))
Here is the new function
rarec <- function (x, step = 1, sample, xlab = "Sample Size", ylab = "Species",
label = TRUE, cols = c(rep('red', nrow(x) / 2), rep('blue', nrow(x) / 2)), ...) {
tot <- rowSums(x)
S <- specnumber(x)
nr <- nrow(x)
out <- lapply(seq_len(nr), function(i) {
n <- seq(1, tot[i], by = step)
if (n[length(n)] != tot[i])
n <- c(n, tot[i])
drop(rarefy(x[i, ], n))
})
Nmax <- sapply(out, function(x) max(attr(x, "Subsample")))
Smax <- sapply(out, max)
plot(c(1, max(Nmax)), c(1, max(Smax)), xlab = xlab, ylab = ylab,
type = "n", ...)
if (!missing(sample)) {
abline(v = sample)
rare <- sapply(out, function(z) approx(x = attr(z, "Subsample"),
y = z, xout = sample, rule = 1)$y)
abline(h = rare, lwd = 0.5)
}
for (ln in seq_len(length(out))) {
N <- attr(out[[ln]], "Subsample")
lines(N, out[[ln]], col = cols[ln], ...)
}
if (label) {
ordilabel(cbind(tot, S), labels = rownames(x), ...)
}
invisible(out)
}