Warning Coloration, Body Size, and the Evolution of Gregarious Behavior in Butterfly Larvae
Warning Coloration, Body Size, and the Evolution of Gregarious Behavior in Butterfly Larvae
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蝴蝶幼虫的警告颜色、体型和群居行为的进化
DOI：
10.1086/724818
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发表时间：
2023
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
McLellan C
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
McLellan C
许多物种通过将群居行为与警示颜色相结合来获得反捕食者的好处，但关于哪种特征首先进化，哪种特征是第二次适应增强存在争议。身体的大小也会影响捕食者接收失语症信号的方式，并可能限制群居行为的进化。据我们所知，群居、排外和体型较大的进化之间的因果联系还没有完全解决。在这里，利用最新解决的蝴蝶系统发育和一个广泛的新的幼虫特征数据库集，我们揭示了与幼虫聚集性相关的重要特征之间的进化相互作用。我们发现，幼虫的群居行为在蝴蝶中出现过多次，而背亲症可能是群居行为进化的先决条件。我们还发现，个体大小可能是决定独居幼虫颜色的重要因素，但不是群居幼虫。此外，通过将人工幼虫暴露在野生鸟类的捕食下，我们表明，没有防御的、隐蔽的幼虫在聚集时严重早熟，但受益于孤立性，而无防御的猎物则相反。我们的数据强化了排斥性对于群居幼虫生存的重要性，同时发现了有关个体大小和毒性在群居行为进化中的作用的新问题。
Many species gain antipredator benefits by combining gregarious behavior with warning coloration, yet there is debate over which trait evolves first and which is the secondary adaptive enhancement. Body size can also influence how predators receive aposematic signals and potentially constrain the evolution of gregarious behavior. To our knowledge, the causative links between the evolution of gregariousness, aposematism, and larger body sizes have not been fully resolved. Here, using the most recently resolved butterfly phylogeny and an extensive new dataset of larval traits, we reveal the evolutionary interactions between important traits linked to larval gregariousness. We show that larval gregariousness has arisen many times across butterflies, and aposematism is a likely prerequisite for gregariousness to evolve. We also find that body size may be an important factor for determining the coloration of solitary, but not gregarious, larvae. Additionally, by exposing artificial larvae to wild avian predation, we show that undefended, cryptic larvae are heavily predated when aggregated but benefit from solitariness, whereas the reverse is true for aposematic prey. Our data reinforce the importance of aposematism for gregarious larval survival while identifying new questions about the roles of body size and toxicity in the evolution of grouping behavior.