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Seasonal changes in predator community switch the direction of selection for prey defences
Insect communities consist of aposematic species with efficient warning colours against predation, as well as abundant examples of crypsis. To understand such coexistence, we here report results from a field experiment where relative survival of artificial larvae, varying in conspicuousness, was est...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Pub. Group
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4199109/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25247589 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms6016 |
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author | Mappes, Johanna Kokko, Hanna Ojala, Katja Lindström, Leena |
author_facet | Mappes, Johanna Kokko, Hanna Ojala, Katja Lindström, Leena |
author_sort | Mappes, Johanna |
collection | PubMed |
description | Insect communities consist of aposematic species with efficient warning colours against predation, as well as abundant examples of crypsis. To understand such coexistence, we here report results from a field experiment where relative survival of artificial larvae, varying in conspicuousness, was estimated in natural bird communities over an entire season. This takes advantage of natural variation in the proportion of naive predators: naivety peaks when young birds have just fledged. We show that the relative benefit of warning signals and crypsis changes accordingly. When naive birds are rare (early and late in the season), conspicuous warning signals improve survival, but conspicuousness becomes a disadvantage near the fledging time of birds. Such temporal structuring of predator–prey relationships facilitates the coexistence of diverse antipredatory strategies and helps explain two patterns we found in a 688-species community of Lepidoterans: larval warning signals remain rare and occur disproportionately often in seasons when predators are educated. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4199109 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | Nature Pub. Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-41991092014-10-17 Seasonal changes in predator community switch the direction of selection for prey defences Mappes, Johanna Kokko, Hanna Ojala, Katja Lindström, Leena Nat Commun Article Insect communities consist of aposematic species with efficient warning colours against predation, as well as abundant examples of crypsis. To understand such coexistence, we here report results from a field experiment where relative survival of artificial larvae, varying in conspicuousness, was estimated in natural bird communities over an entire season. This takes advantage of natural variation in the proportion of naive predators: naivety peaks when young birds have just fledged. We show that the relative benefit of warning signals and crypsis changes accordingly. When naive birds are rare (early and late in the season), conspicuous warning signals improve survival, but conspicuousness becomes a disadvantage near the fledging time of birds. Such temporal structuring of predator–prey relationships facilitates the coexistence of diverse antipredatory strategies and helps explain two patterns we found in a 688-species community of Lepidoterans: larval warning signals remain rare and occur disproportionately often in seasons when predators are educated. Nature Pub. Group 2014-09-23 /pmc/articles/PMC4199109/ /pubmed/25247589 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms6016 Text en Copyright © 2014, Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Mappes, Johanna Kokko, Hanna Ojala, Katja Lindström, Leena Seasonal changes in predator community switch the direction of selection for prey defences |
title | Seasonal changes in predator community switch the direction of selection for prey defences |
title_full | Seasonal changes in predator community switch the direction of selection for prey defences |
title_fullStr | Seasonal changes in predator community switch the direction of selection for prey defences |
title_full_unstemmed | Seasonal changes in predator community switch the direction of selection for prey defences |
title_short | Seasonal changes in predator community switch the direction of selection for prey defences |
title_sort | seasonal changes in predator community switch the direction of selection for prey defences |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4199109/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25247589 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms6016 |
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