Positioning behavior according to individual color variation improves camouflage in novel habitats

Baños‐Villalba, Adrián; Quevedo, David P.; Edelaar, Pim

doi:10.1093/beheco/arx181

Cited by 23 publications

(23 citation statements)

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“…We found differences in colour for grasshoppers in the process of colonizing adjacent but distinctly coloured urban habitats (figure 3b,c), presumably in order to improve grasshopper crypsis (figures 1a and 3a; [30,32]; see [31,33] for supporting evidence). This is rather surprising, given the large scope for homogenization owing to movements between urban and natural habitats, and among the distinct urban habitats.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Biased movement drives local cryptic coloration on distinct urban pavements

et al. 2019

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Explanations of how organisms might adapt to urban environments have mostly focused on divergent natural selection and adaptive plasticity. However, differential habitat choice has been suggested as an alternative. Here, we test for habitat choice in enhancing crypsis in ground-perching grasshoppers colonizing an urbanized environment, composed of a mosaic of four distinctly coloured substrates (asphalt roads and adjacent pavements). Additionally, we determine its relative importance compared to present-day natural selection and phenotypic plasticity. We found that grasshoppers are very mobile, but nevertheless approximately match the colour of their local substrate. By manipulating grasshopper colour, we confirm that grasshoppers increase the usage of those urban substrates that resemble their own colours. This selective movement actively improves crypsis. Colour divergence between grasshoppers on different substrates is not or hardly owing to present-day natural selection, because observed mortality rates are too low to counteract random substrate use. Additional experiments also show negligible contributions from plasticity in colour. Our results confirm that matching habitat choice can be an important driver of adaptation to urban environments. In general, studies should more fully incorporate that individuals are not only selective targets (i.e. selected on by the environment), but also selective agents (i.e. selecting their own environments).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Biased movement drives local cryptic coloration on distinct urban pavements

et al. 2019

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“…Many species of grasshopper are capable of colour change over days and weeks, and this can improve background matching (Edelaar et al, ). Baños‐Villalba, Quevedo & Edelaar () studied microhabitat choice in azure sand grasshoppers ( Sphingonotus azurescens ) living in an urban habitat – street pavements. They found that individual grasshoppers tended to choose to sit in the spaces between paving stones, and in a detection experiment with human subjects this tends to decrease detection rates.…”

Section: Background Choicementioning

confidence: 99%

The key role of behaviour in animal camouflage

2018

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Animal camouflage represents one of the most important ways of preventing (or facilitating) predation. It attracted the attention of the earliest evolutionary biologists, and today remains a focus of investigation in areas ranging from evolutionary ecology, animal decision-making, optimal strategies, visual psychology, computer science, to materials science. Most work focuses on the role of animal morphology per se, and its interactions with the background in affecting detection and recognition. However, the behaviour of organisms is likely to be crucial in affecting camouflage too, through background choice, body orientation and positioning; and strategies of camouflage that require movement. A wealth of potential mechanisms may affect such behaviours, from imprinting and self-assessment to genetics, and operate at several levels (species, morph, and individual). Over many years there have been numerous studies investigating the role of behaviour in camouflage, but to date, no effort to synthesise these studies and ideas into a coherent framework. Here, we review key work on behaviour and camouflage, highlight the mechanisms involved and implications of behaviour, discuss the importance of this in a changing world, and offer suggestions for addressing the many important gaps in our understanding of this subject.

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“…While my main analysis is focused on the discrete green-brown polymorphism, grasshoppers are also remarkable for other color variation. Several open-habitat species vary between pale-grey, almost blackish, reddish and yellowish (Ergene 1952; Edelaar et al 2017; Peralta-Rincon et al 2017; Baños-Villalba, Quevedo & Edelaar 2018). Bright purple or pink variants occur regularly in a number of species (Rowell 1972), but are never dominant in any species of the European fauna.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phylogenetic, geographic and habitat distribution of the green-brown polymorphism in European orthopterans

Schielzeth

2020

Preprint

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The green-brown polymorphism among polyneopteran insects represents one of the most penetrant color polymorphism in any group of organisms. Yet systematic overviews are lacking. I here present analyses of the phylogenetic, geographic and habitat distribution of the green-brown polymorphisms across the complete European Orthopteran fauna. Overall, 30% of European Orthopterans are green-brown polymorphic (36% when excluding crickets and cave crickets). Polymorphic species are scattered across the entire phylogenetic tree, including roughly equal proportions of Ensifera and Caelifera. Some taxonomic groups, however, include only brown species. Polymorphic species occur more frequently in clades that contain green species than in those without green species. The relative abundance of color morphs in polymorphic species is skewed towards green, and in particular rare/exceptional brown morphs are more common in predominantly green species than rare/exceptional green morphs in predominantly brown species. Polymorphic species are particularly common in moist to mesic grasslands. Alpine and arboreal habitats also host high proportions of polymorphic species, while dry, open, rocky and cave habitats as well as nocturnal lifestyles are dominated by brown species. The proportion of polymorphic species increases from southern to northern latitudes. The results show that the occurrence of the polymorphisms is phylogenetically, geographically and ecologically widespread. The patterns suggest that polymorphic populations might arise from green species by loss-of-function mutations, and the overall distributions is possibly even consistent with mutation-selection balance. This would imply a rather high rate of loss of the functional green pigmentation pathway. However, marked habitat-dependencies also show that coloration is affected by natural selection and/or environmental filtering.

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Positioning behavior according to individual color variation improves camouflage in novel habitats

Cited by 23 publications

References 50 publications

Biased movement drives local cryptic coloration on distinct urban pavements

Biased movement drives local cryptic coloration on distinct urban pavements

The key role of behaviour in animal camouflage

Phylogenetic, geographic and habitat distribution of the green-brown polymorphism in European orthopterans

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