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Camouflage using three-dimensional surface disruption

Disruptive markings are common in animal patterns and can provide camouflage benefits by concealing the body's true edges and/or by breaking the surface of the body into multiple depth planes. Disruptive patterns that are accentuated by high contrast borders are most likely to provide false dep...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: King, Jemma, Hemmi, Jan M., Kelley, Jennifer L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10394419/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37528728
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2022.0596
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author King, Jemma
Hemmi, Jan M.
Kelley, Jennifer L.
author_facet King, Jemma
Hemmi, Jan M.
Kelley, Jennifer L.
author_sort King, Jemma
collection PubMed
description Disruptive markings are common in animal patterns and can provide camouflage benefits by concealing the body's true edges and/or by breaking the surface of the body into multiple depth planes. Disruptive patterns that are accentuated by high contrast borders are most likely to provide false depth cues to enhance camouflage, but studies to date have used visual detection models or humans as predators. We presented three-dimensional-printed moth-like targets to wild bird predators to determine whether: (1) three-dimensional prey with disrupted body surfaces have higher survival than three-dimensional prey with continuous surfaces, (2) two-dimensional prey with disruptive patterns or enhanced edge markings have higher survival than non-patterned two-dimensional prey. We found a survival benefit for three-dimensional prey with disrupted surfaces, and a significant effect of mean wing luminance. There was no evidence that false depth cues provided the same protective benefits as physical surface disruption in three-dimensional prey, perhaps because our treatments did not mimic the complexity of patterns found in natural animal markings. Our findings indicate that disruption of surface continuity is an important strategy for concealing a three-dimensional body shape.
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spelling pubmed-103944192023-08-03 Camouflage using three-dimensional surface disruption King, Jemma Hemmi, Jan M. Kelley, Jennifer L. Biol Lett Animal Behaviour Disruptive markings are common in animal patterns and can provide camouflage benefits by concealing the body's true edges and/or by breaking the surface of the body into multiple depth planes. Disruptive patterns that are accentuated by high contrast borders are most likely to provide false depth cues to enhance camouflage, but studies to date have used visual detection models or humans as predators. We presented three-dimensional-printed moth-like targets to wild bird predators to determine whether: (1) three-dimensional prey with disrupted body surfaces have higher survival than three-dimensional prey with continuous surfaces, (2) two-dimensional prey with disruptive patterns or enhanced edge markings have higher survival than non-patterned two-dimensional prey. We found a survival benefit for three-dimensional prey with disrupted surfaces, and a significant effect of mean wing luminance. There was no evidence that false depth cues provided the same protective benefits as physical surface disruption in three-dimensional prey, perhaps because our treatments did not mimic the complexity of patterns found in natural animal markings. Our findings indicate that disruption of surface continuity is an important strategy for concealing a three-dimensional body shape. The Royal Society 2023-08-02 /pmc/articles/PMC10394419/ /pubmed/37528728 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2022.0596 Text en © 2023 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Animal Behaviour
King, Jemma
Hemmi, Jan M.
Kelley, Jennifer L.
Camouflage using three-dimensional surface disruption
title Camouflage using three-dimensional surface disruption
title_full Camouflage using three-dimensional surface disruption
title_fullStr Camouflage using three-dimensional surface disruption
title_full_unstemmed Camouflage using three-dimensional surface disruption
title_short Camouflage using three-dimensional surface disruption
title_sort camouflage using three-dimensional surface disruption
topic Animal Behaviour
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10394419/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37528728
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2022.0596
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