Phenotype–environment matching in sand fleas
Phenotype–environment matching in sand fleas
复制标题
沙蚤的表型与环境匹配
作者：
M. Stevens;A. Broderick;B. Godley;Alice E. Lown;J. Troscianko;N. Weber;S. Weber
伪装可能是自然界中最普遍的反捕食者策略，在许多动物群体中都能找到。一个由来已久的预测是，个体的伪装应该与他们生活的视觉背景相适应。然而，虽然一些研究已经证明了表型与环境的关系，但很少有研究直接表明这会改善伪装，特别是在捕食者的视觉方面。在这里，我们展示了一种潮间带甲壳动物，沙蚤(HIPPA TeStudinaria)，当它被潜在的鸟类捕食者观察时，它的颜色调整到了不同的底物上。来自一个海洋小岛(阿森松岛)的单个沙蚤与它们自己海滩的颜色和亮度比邻近海滩更接近鸟类视觉的模型。根据过去的工作，这种表型-环境匹配很可能是通过个体发育变化而不是遗传适应来驱动的。我们的工作提供了一些第一个直接的证据，证明动物的颜色是为了在一系列视觉背景下为潜在的捕食者提供伪装，在一个小的地理范围内发生的动物种群中。
Camouflage is perhaps the most widespread anti-predator strategy in nature, found in numerous animal groups. A long-standing prediction is that individuals should have camouflage tuned to the visual backgrounds where they live. However, while several studies have demonstrated phenotype–environment associations, few have directly shown that this confers an improvement in camouflage, particularly with respect to predator vision. Here, we show that an intertidal crustacean, the sand flea (Hippa testudinaria), has coloration tuned to the different substrates on which it occurs when viewed by potential avian predators. Individual sand fleas from a small, oceanic island (Ascension) matched the colour and luminance of their own beaches more closely than neighbouring beaches to a model of avian vision. Based on past work, this phenotype–environment matching is likely to be driven through ontogenetic changes rather than genetic adaptation. Our work provides some of the first direct evidence that animal coloration is tuned to provide camouflage to prospective predators against a range of visual backgrounds, in a population of animals occurring over a small geographical range.