Predation by the Grapsid Crab, Armases Angustum (Smith, 1870), on Tadpoles of the Green Poison Frog, Dendrobates Auratus Girard, 1855

Gray, Heather M.; Christy, John H.

doi:10.1163/156854000504958

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…While the extent to which crabs use visual cues in foraging is not clear, color signals are sometimes used in crab social signaling (Hemmi et al 2006;Cummings et al 2008) and our visual modeling study suggests that yellow and red O. pumilio appear both conspicuous and distinct in a crab visual system. Crab predation on poison frogs has been documented (Gray and Christy 2000) and we have observed crabs attacking and chasing O. pumilio on Bastimentos (C. Richards-Zawacki, unpublished). For these reasons, we have not ruled out the possibility that predation by crabs, as well as by more traditional visual predators such as birds, could be important in shaping the evolutionary trajectory of the Bastimentos O. pumilio polymorphism.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

No evidence for differential survival or predation between sympatric color morphs of an aposematic poison frog

2013

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Because variation in warning signals slows down the predator education process, aposematic theory predicts that animal warning signals should be monomorphic. Yet, warning color polytypisms are not uncommon in aposematic species. In cases where warning signal variants are separated geographically, adaptation to local predators could explain this variation. However, this cannot explain the persistence of sympatric polymorphisms in aposematic taxa. The strawberry poison frog (Oophaga pumilio) exhibits both allopatric and sympatric warning color variation in and around the Bocas del Toro archipelago of Panama. One explanation that has been proposed for the rapid diversification of O. pumilio coloration in this archipelago is low predation; if island populations have few predators, stabilizing selection would be relaxed opening the door for diversification via selection or genetic drift. Using a combination of mark-recapture and clay model studies, we tested for differences in survival and predation among sympatric red and yellow color morphs of O. pumilio from Bastimentos Island. We found no evidence for differential survival or predation in this population, despite the fact that one morph (red) is more common and widely distributed than the other (yellow). Even in an area of the island where the yellow morph is not found, predator attack rates were similar among morphs. Visual modeling suggests that yellow and red morphs are distinguishable and conspicuous against a variety of backgrounds and by viewers with different visual systems. Our results suggest that general avoidance by predators of red and yellow, both of which are typical warning colors used throughout the animal kingdom, may be contributing to the apparent stability of this polymorphism.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

No evidence for differential survival or predation between sympatric color morphs of an aposematic poison frog

2013

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“…Saporito et al 2007;Noonan & Comeault 2009;Chouteau & Angers 2011). Colubrid snakes and spiders have also been reported to predate poison frogs (Summers 1999;Gray, Kaiser & Green 2010;Santos & Cannatella 2011), and Gray & Christy (2000) reported that the grapsid crab Armases angustum preys on D. auratus tadpoles. Therefore, our main results are based on psychophysical models of bird vision, but we replicated all analysis based on snake and crab vision following methods described in Maan & Cummings (2012).…”

Section: A N a L Y S I S O F A P O S E M A T I C S I G N A L S A N D mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One published report of predation of tadpoles in the wild (Gray & Christy 2000), apparent use of colour discrimination mostly for intraspecific communication (Detto 2007;Cummings et al 2008;Baldwin & Johnsen 2012).…”

Section: Predation Events On Poison Frogs Reportedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diet, development and the optimization of warning signals in post‐metamorphic green and black poison frogs

et al. 2013

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Summary1. Many prey species are chemically defended and have conspicuous appearance to deter predators (i.e. aposematism). Such warning signals work because predators pay attention to the colour and size of signals, which they associate with unprofitability. 2. Paradoxically, in early life stages, aposematic species are often warningly coloured, but their chemical defences are lacking because they have yet to be acquired through the diet or synthesized endogenously. This state of being conspicuous yet poorly defended must place individuals at increased risk of predation, but how they minimize this risk during development is unclear. 3. We reared larval green and black poison frogs (Dendrobates auratus) on a relatively low or a higher food supply and tested the hypothesis that individuals with more resources should grow larger while reducing their investment in warning signals at metamorphic completion. We also assayed markers of oxidative balance (malondialdehyde, superoxide dismutase and total antioxidant capacity) to ascertain whether there were resource-allocation trade-offs that differed with diet treatments. 4. Low-food froglets were relatively small, and their body size and signal luminance (perceived brightness) were positively correlated. In contrast, in high-food froglets body size and warning signal luminance were negatively correlated, suggesting either a resource-allocation trade-off or alternatively a facultative reduction in luminance exhibited by larger froglets. 5. The reduction in luminance in relatively large, high-food froglets did not appear to arise because of oxidative stress: signal luminance and markers of oxidative stress were positively correlated in high-food froglets, but were negatively correlated in low-food froglets suggesting a trade-off. 6. Our results highlight developmental plasticity in body size and coloration as affected by resource (i.e. food) supply. Such plasticity seems likely to minimize predation risk during the vulnerable period early in life when individuals are warningly coloured and must make the transition from an undefended phenotype to a mature aposematic state.

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“…Predator-specific perceptual biases in particular may exert divergent selection on aposematic signal design. Frog predators come from widely different taxa (e.g., birds, spiders, snakes, and crabs ;Silverstone 1975;Myers and Daly 1976;Formanowicz et al 1981;Brodie and Tumbarello 1987;Master 1999;Gray and Christy 2000;Gray et al 2010), representing a variety of visual systems. Birds tend to be tetrachromats (i.e., four photoreceptor classes) and sensitive from ultraviolet (UV) to long wavelengths (Bowmaker et al 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Poison Frog Colors Are Honest Signals of Toxicity, Particularly for Bird Predators

Maan

Cummings

2012

The American Naturalist

211

224

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. abstract: Antipredator defenses and warning signals typically evolve in concert. However, the extensive variation across taxa in both these components of predator deterrence and the relationship between them are poorly understood. Here we test whether there is a predictive relationship between visual conspicuousness and toxicity levels across 10 populations of the color-polymorphic strawberry poison frog, Dendrobates pumilio. Using a mouse-based toxicity assay, we find extreme variation in toxicity between frog populations. This variation is significantly positively correlated with frog coloration brightness, a viewer-independent measure of visual conspicuousness (i.e., total reflectance flux). We also examine conspicuousness from the view of three potential predator taxa, as well as conspecific frogs, using taxon-specific visual detection models and three natural background substrates. We find very strong positive relationships between frog toxicity and conspicuousness for bird-specific perceptual models. Weaker but still positive correlations are found for crab and D. pumilio conspecific visual perception, while frog coloration as viewed by snakes is not related to toxicity. These results suggest that poison frog colors can be honest signals of prey unpalatability to predators and that birds in particular may exert selection on aposematic signal design.

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Predation by the Grapsid Crab, Armases Angustum (Smith, 1870), on Tadpoles of the Green Poison Frog, Dendrobates Auratus Girard, 1855

Cited by 14 publications

References 7 publications

No evidence for differential survival or predation between sympatric color morphs of an aposematic poison frog

No evidence for differential survival or predation between sympatric color morphs of an aposematic poison frog

Diet, development and the optimization of warning signals in post‐metamorphic green and black poison frogs

Poison Frog Colors Are Honest Signals of Toxicity, Particularly for Bird Predators

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