Hard to catch: Experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry

Páez, Erika; Valkonen, Janne K.; Willmott, Keith R.; Matos‐Maraví, Pável; Élias, Marianne; Mappes, Johanna

doi:10.1101/2020.05.20.102525

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Data accessibility. The dataset and coding necessary to reproduce the results of this study are available from the Dryad Digital Repository: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.vq83bk3rj [76]. Competing interests.…”

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Hard to catch: experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry

et al. 2021

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Most research on aposematism has focused on chemically defended prey, but the signalling difficulty of capture remains poorly explored. Similar to classical Batesian and Müllerian mimicry related to distastefulness, such ‘evasive aposematism' may also lead to convergence in warning colours, known as evasive mimicry. A prime candidate group for evasive mimicry are Adelpha butterflies, which are agile insects and show remarkable colour pattern convergence. We tested the ability of naive blue tits to learn to avoid and generalize Adelpha wing patterns associated with the difficulty of capture and compared their response to that of birds that learned to associate the same wing patterns with distastefulness. Birds learned to avoid all wing patterns tested and generalized their aversion to other prey to some extent, but learning was faster with evasive prey compared to distasteful prey. Our results on generalization agree with longstanding observations of striking convergence in wing colour patterns among Adelpha species, since, in our experiments, perfect mimics of evasive and distasteful models were always protected during generalization and suffered the lowest attack rate. Moreover, generalization on evasive prey was broader compared to that on distasteful prey. Our results suggest that being hard to catch may deter predators at least as effectively as distastefulness. This study provides empirical evidence for evasive mimicry, a potentially widespread but poorly understood form of morphological convergence driven by predator selection.

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Hard to catch: experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry

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“…Rapid evasive responses are a vital tool prey use to minimise capture by predators (1, 2). Despite their ubiquity, it can be challenging to demonstrate the benefit of escape strategies because integrating realistic predation and manipulation of prey behaviour that experimentally controls for confounding effects is difficult.…”

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Responsive robotic prey reveal how predators adapt to predictability in escape tactics

Szopa-Comley

Ioannou

2021

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To increase their chances of survival, prey often respond to predators by being unpredictable when escaping, but the response of predators to such tactics is unknown. We programmed interactive robot-controlled prey to flee from an approaching blue acara predator (Andinoacara pulcher), allowing us to manipulate the predictability of the prey's initial escape direction. When repeatedly exposed to predictable prey, the predators adjusted their behaviour before the prey even began to escape: prey programmed to escape directly away were approached more rapidly than prey escaping at an acute angle. These faster approach speeds compensated for a longer time needed to capture such prey during the subsequent pursuit phase, and predators showed greater acceleration when pursuing unpredictable prey. Collectively, these behaviours resulted in the prey's predictability having no net effect on the time to capture prey. Rather than minimising capture times, predators adjust their behaviour to maintain an adequate level of performance.

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“…Some sympatric Morpho species were shown to locally converge in their blue pattern, probably because of frequency-dependent selection generated by predator behaviour, in a similar way as Müllerian mimics (Llaurens et al 2020). The iridescent blue colouration of Morpho butterflies shared by sympatric species may thus reduce individual predation by advertising escape ability (the "escape mimicry" hypothesis, see Páez et al, 2020). Such local convergence might in turn impair species recognition and mate choice.…”

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Convergent morphology and divergent phenology: unravelling the coexistence of mimeticMorphobutterfly species

Roy

Roux

Authier

et al. 2020

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The emergence and persistence of closely-related species in sympatry is puzzling because the potential gene flow and the common local selective pressures may lead to either merging or competitive exclusion. Some species of Morpho butterflies occurring in sympatry display highly similar wing colour patterns. Associated with erratic flight abilities, their bright colouration may limit predator success and discourage future attacks. The evolution of similar colouration in sympatric species is thus likely under local selection by predators (i.e. escape mimicry). Such phenotypic similarity may promote interspecific territoriality and/or reproductive interference, questioning how closely-related co-mimetic species become sexually isolated and coexist in sympatry. We performed a series of field experiments using flying Morpho dummies placed in a natural habitat where wild males commonly patrol. Analysing the interactions of wild Morpho with different dummies, we show that similarity in wing colour pattern leads to interspecific territoriality and courtship among sympatric species. Using genomic data, we then showed that sympatric Morpho species are surprisingly strictly isolated despite their close relatedness and the observed heterospecific interactions. Finally, using a mark-recapture experiment, we discovered a strong temporal segregation in patrolling activity of males from two co-mimetic sister species. Such divergence in phenology may favour sympatry between closely-related species, despite behavioural interferences induced by the local convergence in colour pattern. Altogether, our findings show that temporal segregation may facilitate the co-existence of closely-related species sharing the same ecological niche, suggesting that phenological shifts may represent an overlooked factor of sympatric speciation. Our study therefore highlights how the evolution of multiple traits may favour species diversification in sympatry by partitioning niche in different dimensions.

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Hard to catch: Experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry

Cited by 4 publications

References 48 publications

Hard to catch: experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry

Hard to catch: experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry

Responsive robotic prey reveal how predators adapt to predictability in escape tactics

Convergent morphology and divergent phenology: unravelling the coexistence of mimeticMorphobutterfly species

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