Academic literature on the topic 'Animal coloration/predators'
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Journal articles on the topic "Animal coloration/predators"
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Pike, Thomas W. "Interference coloration as an anti-predator defence." Biology Letters 11, no. 4 (April 2015): 20150159. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0159.
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Interference coloration, in which the perceived colour varies predictably with the angle of illumination or observation, is extremely widespread across animal groups. However, despite considerable advances in our understanding of the mechanistic basis of interference coloration in animals, we still have a poor understanding of its function. Here, I show, using avian predators hunting dynamic virtual prey, that the presence of interference coloration can significantly reduce a predator's attack success. Predators required more pecks to successfully catch interference-coloured prey compared with otherwise identical prey items that lacked interference coloration, and attacks against prey with interference colours were less accurate, suggesting that changes in colour or brightness caused by prey movement hindered a predator's ability to pinpoint their exact location. The pronounced anti-predator benefits of interference coloration may explain why it has evolved independently so many times.
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Lakhani, Leena. "PROTECTIVE COLORATION IN ANIMALS." International Journal of Research -GRANTHAALAYAH 2, no. 3SE (December 31, 2014): 1–5. http://dx.doi.org/10.29121/granthaalayah.v2.i3se.2014.3515.
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Animals have range of defensive markings which helps to the risk of predator detection (camouflage), warn predators of the prey’s unpalatability (aposematism) or fool a predator into mimicry, masquerade. Animals also use colors in advertising, signalling services such as cleaning to animals of other species, to signal sexual status to other members of the same species. Some animals use color to divert attacks by startle (dalmatic behaviour), surprising a predator e.g. witheyespots or other flashes of color or possibly by motion dazzle, confusing a predator attack by moving a bold pattern like zebra stripes. Some animals are colored for physical protection, such as having pigments in the skin to protect against sunburn; some animals can lighten or darken their skin for temperature regulation. This adaptive mechanism is known as protective coloration. After several years of evolution, most animals now achieved the color pattern most suited for their natural habitat and role in the food chains. Animals in the world rely on their coloration for either protection from predators, concealment from prey or sexual selection. In general the purpose of protective coloration is to decrease an organism’s visibility or to alter its appearance to other organisms. Sometimes several forms of protective coloration are superimposed on one animal.
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Nielsen, Matthew E., and Johanna Mappes. "Out in the open: behavior’s effect on predation risk and thermoregulation by aposematic caterpillars." Behavioral Ecology 31, no. 4 (May 20, 2020): 1031–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/beheco/araa048.
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Abstract Warning coloration should be under strong stabilizing selection but often displays considerable intraspecific variation. Opposing selection on color by predators and temperature is one potential explanation for this seeming paradox. Despite the importance of behavior for both predator avoidance and thermoregulation, its role in mediating selection by predators and temperature on warning coloration has received little attention. Wood tiger moth caterpillars, Arctia plantaginis, have aposematic coloration, an orange patch on the black body. The size of the orange patch varies considerably: individuals with larger patches are safer from predators, but having a small patch is beneficial in cool environments. We investigated microhabitat preference by these caterpillars and how it interacted with their coloration. We expected caterpillar behavior to reflect a balance between spending time exposed to maximize basking and spending time concealed to avoid detection by predators. Instead, we found that caterpillars preferred exposed locations regardless of their coloration. Whether caterpillars were exposed or concealed had a strong effect on both temperature and predation risk, but caterpillars in exposed locations were both much warmer and less likely to be attacked by a bird predator (great tits, Parus major). This shared optimum may explain why we observed so little variation in caterpillar behavior and demonstrates the important effects of behavior on multiple functions of coloration.
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Stevens, Martin, Annette C. Broderick, Brendan J. Godley, Alice E. Lown, Jolyon Troscianko, Nicola Weber, and Sam B. Weber. "Phenotype–environment matching in sand fleas." Biology Letters 11, no. 8 (August 2015): 20150494. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0494.
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Camouflage is perhaps the most widespread anti-predator strategy in nature, found in numerous animal groups. A long-standing prediction is that individuals should have camouflage tuned to the visual backgrounds where they live. However, while several studies have demonstrated phenotype–environment associations, few have directly shown that this confers an improvement in camouflage, particularly with respect to predator vision. Here, we show that an intertidal crustacean, the sand flea ( Hippa testudinaria ), has coloration tuned to the different substrates on which it occurs when viewed by potential avian predators. Individual sand fleas from a small, oceanic island (Ascension) matched the colour and luminance of their own beaches more closely than neighbouring beaches to a model of avian vision. Based on past work, this phenotype–environment matching is likely to be driven through ontogenetic changes rather than genetic adaptation. Our work provides some of the first direct evidence that animal coloration is tuned to provide camouflage to prospective predators against a range of visual backgrounds, in a population of animals occurring over a small geographical range.
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Stevens, Martin, Johanna Mappes, and Siiri-Lii Sandre. "The effect of predator appetite, prey warning coloration and luminance on predator foraging decisions." Behaviour 147, no. 9 (2010): 1121–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/000579510x507001.
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AbstractAposematic prey advertise their defence to visually hunting predators using conspicuous warning colouration. Established theory predicts that aposematic signals should evolve towards increased conspicuousness and similarity to enhance predator education. Contrary to theoretical expectations, there is often considerable within- and between-species variation in aposematic signals of animals sharing the same ecological niche, phylogeny and predators. This may be explained by varying responses of predators that weaken the selection pressure for a consistent signal. By presenting painted mealworm larvae as prey to great tits as predators we tested if different aposematic colour patterns have different values as a means of initial protection and learnt avoidance from predators, and how widely birds generalise their learnt avoidance to other colour patterns. We also investigated how the colour and luminance of the pattern elements affect predator attack decisions. Finally, we studied if hunger affects the predators' reaction to differently coloured prey. We found that similarity in colour was not crucial to the survival of aposematic prey, since learnt avoidance was not influenced by colour, and predators remembered and generalised widely in their learnt avoidance to other colours. We found that initial avoidance was, however, apparently influenced by luminance contrast. Interestingly, the predators' level of hunger was more important than the colour of the aposematic signal in determining birds' decisions to attack chemically-defended insect larvae. We discuss the implications of visual properties of prey colour pattern and predator appetite for the evolution of insect defences and warning signals. In addition we propose a methodological approach to effectively control for predator appetite in laboratory experiments.
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Miller, C. W., and S. D. Hollander. "Predation on heliconia bugs, Leptoscelis tricolor: examining the influences of crypsis and predator color preferences." Canadian Journal of Zoology 88, no. 1 (January 2010): 122–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/z09-128.
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Individuals in natural populations commonly vary in color, and such color variation can be important for survival under predation pressure. Potential prey may be more likely to survive when they are cryptic against their backgrounds. Alternatively, individual coloration, regardless of background, may itself best predict predation events. Few studies have simultaneously tested the importance of crypsis and predator color preferences in explaining predation events. In this study we used objective measures of coloration to examine whether heliconia bugs, Leptoscelis tricolor Westwood, 1842 (Hemiptera: Coreidae), resembling their background were less likely to be eaten by avian predators (crypsis hypothesis). Next, we evaluated whether insect color, irrespective of background, best explains predation events (color preference hypothesis). We found the strongest evidence for the crypsis hypothesis; predators chose prey that differed most from their background in color saturation. Some evidence was also found for the color preference hypothesis; predators avoided brightly colored prey. These results suggest that crypsis can be effective in detouring predation. However, when potential prey are detected, predator color preferences may best explain predation events.
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Stevens, Martin, and Graeme D. Ruxton. "Linking the evolution and form of warning coloration in nature." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 279, no. 1728 (November 23, 2011): 417–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2011.1932.
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Many animals are toxic or unpalatable and signal this to predators with warning signals (aposematism). Aposematic appearance has long been a classical system to study predator–prey interactions, communication and signalling, and animal behaviour and learning. The area has received considerable empirical and theoretical investigation. However, most research has centred on understanding the initial evolution of aposematism, despite the fact that these studies often tell us little about the form and diversity of real warning signals in nature. In contrast, less attention has been given to the mechanistic basis of aposematic markings; that is, ‘what makes an effective warning signal?’, and the efficacy of warning signals has been neglected. Furthermore, unlike other areas of adaptive coloration research (such as camouflage and mate choice), studies of warning coloration have often been slow to address predator vision and psychology. Here, we review the current understanding of warning signal form, with an aim to comprehend the diversity of warning signals in nature. We present hypotheses and suggestions for future work regarding our current understanding of several inter-related questions covering the form of warning signals and their relationship with predator vision, learning, and links to broader issues in evolutionary ecology such as mate choice and speciation.
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Brandley, Nicholas, Matthew Johnson, and Sönke Johnsen. "Aposematic signals in North American black widows are more conspicuous to predators than to prey." Behavioral Ecology 27, no. 4 (January 1, 2016): 1104–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arw014.
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Abstract The iconic red hourglass of the black widow spiders (genus Latrodectus) is traditionally considered an aposematic signal, yet experimental evidence is lacking. Here, we present data that suggest that black widow coloration may have evolved to be an aposematic signal that is more conspicuous to their vertebrate predators than to their insect prey. In choice experiments with wild birds, we found that the red-and-black coloration deters potential predators: Wild birds were ~3 times less likely to attack a black widow model with an hourglass than one without. Using visual-system appropriate models, we also found that a black widow’s red-and-black color combo is more apparent to a typical bird than a typical insect. Additionally, an ancestral reconstruction reveals that red dorsal coloration is ancestral in black widows and that at some point some North American widows lost their red dorsal coloration. Behaviorally, differences in red dorsal coloration between 2 North American species are accompanied by differences in microhabitat that affects how often a bird will view a black widow’s dorsal region. All observations are consistent with a cost–benefit trade-off of being more conspicuous to predators than to prey. We suggest that limiting detection by prey may help explain why red and black aposematic signals occur frequently in nature.
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Sherratt, Thomas N., and Casey A. Peet-Paré. "The perfection of mimicry: an information approach." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 372, no. 1724 (May 22, 2017): 20160340. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2016.0340.
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We consider why imperfect deceptive mimics can persist when it appears to be in the predator's interest to discriminate finely between mimics and their models. One theory is that a receiver will accept being duped if the model and mimic overlap in appearance and the relative costs of attacking the model are high. However, a more fundamental explanation for the difficulty of discrimination is not based on perceptual uncertainty, but simply based on a lack of information. In particular, predators in the process of learning may cease sampling imperfect mimics entirely because the immediate pay-off and future value of information is low, allowing such mimics to persist. This outcome will be particularly likely when the model is relatively costly to attack and/or the discriminative rules the predator has to learn are complex. Information limitations neatly explain why predators tend to adopt discriminative rules based on single traits (such as stripe colour), rather than on combinations of traits (such as stripe order). They also explain why predators utilize certain salient discriminative traits while ignoring equally informative ones (a phenomenon known as overshadowing), and why imperfect mimics may be more common in phenotypically diverse prey communities. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Animal coloration: production, perception, function and application’.
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Cezário, Rodrigo Roucourt, Vinicius Marques Lopez, Stanislav Gorb, and Rhainer Guillermo-Ferreira. "Dynamic iridescent signals of male copperwing damselflies coupled with wing-clapping displays: the perspective of different receivers." Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 134, no. 1 (June 2, 2021): 229–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blab068.
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Abstract Dynamic signals are a widespread phenomenon in several taxa, usually associated with intraspecific communication. In contrast, dynamic iridescent signals are detectable only at specific angles of illumination; hence, the animal can hide the signal to avoid detection when necessary. This structural coloration is mostly dependent on the illumination, the contrast against the background and the vision of the receiver. Complex behavioural displays can be coupled with structural coloration to create dynamic visual signals that enhance these functions. Here, we address whether iridescence of the males of a damselfly that inhabits dark rainforests, Chalcopteryx scintillans, can be considered a dynamic visual signal. We analyse whether coloration is perceived by conspecifics, while reducing detectability to eavesdroppers against three types of backgrounds. Our results suggest that the visual background affects the detectability of male hindwings by different receivers, mostly predators and prey. We discuss whether these results and the angle dependence of colour could indicate a mechanism to avoid unwanted intraspecific interactions or even to lure both predators and prey. We conclude that the main functions of the dynamic iridescent signal are to communicate with conspecifics while hindering the signal for prey, adding evidence of the multifunctionality of structural coloration coupled with behavioural displays in animals.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Animal coloration/predators"
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Guilford, T. "Aposematism." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.382678.
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Torok, Alexandra. "Halting attack : startle displays and flash coloration as anti-predator defences." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.709452.
Full textBooks on the topic "Animal coloration/predators"
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Ruxton, Graeme D., William L. Allen, Thomas N. Sherratt, and Michael P. Speed. Disruptive camouflage. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199688678.003.0003.
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Disruptive camouflage involves using coloration to hinder detection or recognition of an object’s outline, or other conspicuous features of its body. This involves using coloration to create ‘false’ edges that make the ‘true’ interior and exterior edges used by visual predators to find and recognize prey less apparent. Disruptive camouflage can therefore be thought of as a manipulation of the signal-to-noise ratio that depends on features of the perceptual processing of receivers. This chapter discusses the multiple mechanisms via which disruptive camouflage is thought to influence visual processing, from edge detection, through perceptual grouping, and then on to object recognition processing. This receiver-centred approach—rather than a prey-phenotype-centred approach—aims to integrate disruption within the sensory ecology of predator–prey interactions. We then discuss the taxonomic, ecological, and behavioural correlates of disruptive camouflage strategies, work on the relationship between disruption and other forms of protective coloration, and review the development of approaches to quantifying disruption in animals.
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Ruxton, Graeme D., William L. Allen, Thomas N. Sherratt, and Michael P. Speed. Aposematism. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199688678.003.0007.
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Aposematism is the pairing of two kinds of defensive phenotype: an often repellent secondary defence that typically renders prey unprofitable to predators if they attack them and some evolved signal that indicates the presence of that defence. Aposematic signals often work to modify the behaviours of predators both before and during attacks. Warning coloration, for example, may increase wariness and hence improve the chances that a chemically defended prey is released unharmed after an attack. An aposematic signal may therefore first tend to reduce the probability that a predator commences attack (a primary defence) and then (as a component of secondary defence) reduce the probability that the prey is injured or killed during any subsequent attack. In this chapter we will consider both the primary and the secondary effects of aposematic signals on prey protection. We begin first by describing the common features of aposematic signals and attempting to show the wide use to which aposematic signalling is deployed across animals (and perhaps plants too). We then review the interesting evolutionary issues aposematic signals raise, including their initial evolution and their integration with sexual and other signals. We also discuss important ecological, co-evolutionary, and macroevolutionary consequences of aposematism.
Book chapters on the topic "Animal coloration/predators"
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Barash, David P. "The Natural World." In Threats, 7–46. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190055295.003.0002.
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This chapter examines how threats, counterthreats, warnings, feints, and deceptions are found throughout the natural world, in the daily lives of animals and even plants. Indeed, these can be seen in plants with thorns and poisons, as well as in animals growling, roaring, baring teeth, showing and exaggerating their weapons (or pretending to have weapons), misrepresenting their ferocity, puffing themselves up, and generally seeking to intimidate their rivals or potential predators. The chapter then considers the role of honesty versus deception: the evolution of warning coloration, whereby brightly colored poison arrow frogs, for example, inform would-be predators that eating them would be a bad idea; and mimicry, in which animals who are not themselves especially dangerous resemble others that are harmful to their predators and thus gain protection via the “empty threat” the former conveys. This, in turn, speaks to the intriguing question of whether a given threat is real or fake, honest or dishonest, and what difference—if any—this makes. The chapter also explains the hawk–dove model of the variations of animal threat, and looks at vocal threats and animal eavesdropping.
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Sloan Wilson, David. "Cooperation and Altruism." In Evolutionary Ecology. Oxford University Press, 2001. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195131543.003.0023.
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People have always been fascinated by cooperation and altruism in animals, in part to shed light on our own propensity or reluctance to help others. Darwin’s theory added a certain urgency to the subject because the principle of “nature red in tooth and claw” superficially seems to deny the possibility of altruism and cooperation altogether. Some evolutionary biologists have accepted and even reveled in this vision of nature, giving rise to statements such as “the economy of nature is competitive from beginning to end . . . scratch an ‘altruist’ and watch a hypocrite bleed”. Others have gone so far in the opposite direction as to proclaim the entire earth a unit that cooperatively regulates its own atmosphere (Lovelock 1979). The truth is somewhere between these two extremes; cooperation and altruism can evolve but only if special conditions are met. As might be expected from the polarized views outlined above, achieving this middle ground has been a difficult process. Science is often portrayed as a heroic march to the truth, but in this case, it is more like the Three Stooges trying to move a piano. I don’t mean to underestimate the progress that been made—the piano has been moved—but we need to appreciate the twists, turns, and reversals in addition to the final location. To see why cooperation and altruism pose a problem for evolutionary theory, consider the evolution of a nonsocial adaptation, such as cryptic coloration. Imagine a population of moths that vary in the degree to which they match their background. Every generation, the most conspicuous moths are detected and eaten by predators while the most cryptic moths survive and reproduce. If offspring resemble their parents, then the average moth will become more cryptic with every generation. Anyone who has beheld a moth that looks exactly like a leaf, right down to the veins and simulated herbivore damage, cannot fail to be impressed by the power of natural selection to evolve breathtaking adaptations at the individual level. Now consider the same process for a social adaptation, such as members of a group warning each other about approaching predators.