Hard to catch: experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F60077344%3A_____%2F21%3A00541148" target="_blank" >RIV/60077344:_____/21:00541148 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2020.3052" target="_blank" >https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2020.3052</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.3052" target="_blank" >10.1098/rspb.2020.3052</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Hard to catch: experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry
Original language description
Most research on aposematism has focused on chemically defended prey, but the signalling difficulty of capture remains poorly explored. Similar tonclassical Batesian and Müllerian mimicry related to distastefulness, such ‘evasive aposematism’ may also lead to convergence in warning colours,nknown as evasive mimicry. A prime candidate group for evasive mimicry are Adelpha butterflies, which are agile insects and show remarkablencolour pattern convergence. We tested the ability of naive blue tits to learn to avoid and generalize Adelpha wing patterns associated with the difficulty of capture and compared their response to that of birds that learned to associate the same wing patterns with distastefulness. Birds learned to avoid all wing patterns tested and generalized their aversion to other prey to some extent, but learning was faster with evasive prey compared to distasteful prey. Our results on generalization agree with longstanding observations of striking convergence in wing colour patterns among Adelpha species, since, in our experiments, perfect mimics of evasive and distasteful models were always protected during generalization and suffered the lowest attack rate. Moreover, generalization on evasive prey was broader compared to that on distasteful prey. Our results suggest that being hard to catch may deter predators at least as effectively as distastefulness. This study provides empirical evidence for evasive mimicry, a potentially widespread but poorly understood form of morphological convergence driven by predator selection.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
10618 - Ecology
Result continuities
Project
<a href="/en/project/GJ20-18566Y" target="_blank" >GJ20-18566Y: The role of species interactions in the diversification of Neotropical butterflies at the macroevolutionary and microevolutionary scales</a><br>
Continuities
P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)
Others
Publication year
2021
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences
ISSN
0962-8452
e-ISSN
1471-2954
Volume of the periodical
288
Issue of the periodical within the volume
1946
Country of publishing house
GB - UNITED KINGDOM
Number of pages
10
Pages from-to
20203052
UT code for WoS article
000627840400004
EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-85102911794