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Colour change of twig-mimicking peppered moth larvae is a continuous reaction norm that increases camouflage against avian predators

Camouflage, and in particular background-matching, is one of the most common anti-predator strategies observed in nature. Animals can improve their match to the colour/pattern of their surroundings through background selection, and/or by plastic colour change. Colour change can occur rapidly (a few...

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Autores principales: Eacock, Amy, Rowland, Hannah M., Edmonds, Nicola, Saccheri, Ilik J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5691783/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29158965
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3999
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author Eacock, Amy
Rowland, Hannah M.
Edmonds, Nicola
Saccheri, Ilik J.
author_facet Eacock, Amy
Rowland, Hannah M.
Edmonds, Nicola
Saccheri, Ilik J.
author_sort Eacock, Amy
collection PubMed
description Camouflage, and in particular background-matching, is one of the most common anti-predator strategies observed in nature. Animals can improve their match to the colour/pattern of their surroundings through background selection, and/or by plastic colour change. Colour change can occur rapidly (a few seconds), or it may be slow, taking hours to days. Many studies have explored the cues and mechanisms behind rapid colour change, but there is a considerable lack of information about slow colour change in the context of predation: the cues that initiate it, and the range of phenotypes that are produced. Here we show that peppered moth (Biston betularia) larvae respond to colour and luminance of the twigs they rest on, and exhibit a continuous reaction norm of phenotypes. When presented with a heterogeneous environment of mixed twig colours, individual larvae specialise crypsis towards one colour rather than developing an intermediate colour. Flexible colour change in this species has likely evolved in association with wind dispersal and polyphagy, which result in caterpillars settling and feeding in a diverse range of visual environments. This is the first example of visually induced slow colour change in Lepidoptera that has been objectively quantified and measured from the visual perspective of natural predators.
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spelling pubmed-56917832017-11-20 Colour change of twig-mimicking peppered moth larvae is a continuous reaction norm that increases camouflage against avian predators Eacock, Amy Rowland, Hannah M. Edmonds, Nicola Saccheri, Ilik J. PeerJ Animal Behavior Camouflage, and in particular background-matching, is one of the most common anti-predator strategies observed in nature. Animals can improve their match to the colour/pattern of their surroundings through background selection, and/or by plastic colour change. Colour change can occur rapidly (a few seconds), or it may be slow, taking hours to days. Many studies have explored the cues and mechanisms behind rapid colour change, but there is a considerable lack of information about slow colour change in the context of predation: the cues that initiate it, and the range of phenotypes that are produced. Here we show that peppered moth (Biston betularia) larvae respond to colour and luminance of the twigs they rest on, and exhibit a continuous reaction norm of phenotypes. When presented with a heterogeneous environment of mixed twig colours, individual larvae specialise crypsis towards one colour rather than developing an intermediate colour. Flexible colour change in this species has likely evolved in association with wind dispersal and polyphagy, which result in caterpillars settling and feeding in a diverse range of visual environments. This is the first example of visually induced slow colour change in Lepidoptera that has been objectively quantified and measured from the visual perspective of natural predators. PeerJ Inc. 2017-11-14 /pmc/articles/PMC5691783/ /pubmed/29158965 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3999 Text en ©2017 Eacock et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Animal Behavior
Eacock, Amy
Rowland, Hannah M.
Edmonds, Nicola
Saccheri, Ilik J.
Colour change of twig-mimicking peppered moth larvae is a continuous reaction norm that increases camouflage against avian predators
title Colour change of twig-mimicking peppered moth larvae is a continuous reaction norm that increases camouflage against avian predators
title_full Colour change of twig-mimicking peppered moth larvae is a continuous reaction norm that increases camouflage against avian predators
title_fullStr Colour change of twig-mimicking peppered moth larvae is a continuous reaction norm that increases camouflage against avian predators
title_full_unstemmed Colour change of twig-mimicking peppered moth larvae is a continuous reaction norm that increases camouflage against avian predators
title_short Colour change of twig-mimicking peppered moth larvae is a continuous reaction norm that increases camouflage against avian predators
title_sort colour change of twig-mimicking peppered moth larvae is a continuous reaction norm that increases camouflage against avian predators
topic Animal Behavior
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5691783/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29158965
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3999
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