DISSERTATION RESEARCH: The Evolutionary Puzzle of Warning Coloration

标题：警告颜色的进化之谜名字：杰弗里·R·卢卡斯和亚当·罗伯特·博伊科摘要：许多有毒动物用鲜明的警告模式来宣传它们的厌恶。这些模式帮助捕食者学会避开它们，但人们对这些模式是如何演变的知之甚少。当警告模式第一次出现时，捕食者不熟悉它，并不成比例地攻击该模式。只有在许多个体分享了新的模式后，捕食者才会学会避开它们。很难解释新的警告模式如何克服它们最初的缺点，但警告模式不仅在许多物种中进化，而且在许多物种中已经广泛多样化。在热带蝴蝶的赫利柯斯属中，新的警告模式在一些物种中进化了几十次，但在另一些物种中只进化了一次。进化理论预测，这些物种之间的种群结构差异是导致它们多样化程度不同的原因，但这一理论尚未得到证实。在这项研究中，将测量居住在孤立的树冠空隙中的赫利柯斯自然种群的结构。这项研究将与赫利尼乌斯的警报模式进化的计算模拟相结合，以查看进化理论是否正确地预测了该属中警报模式多样化的观察到的比率。或者，不同物种间性别选择的差异可能通过促进或抑制颜色模式的进化来解释不同的多样化比率。为了检验这种可能性，将在这些物种的温室群体中研究配偶选择和配偶竞争。

Title: The Evolutionary Puzzle of Warning ColorationName: Jeffrey R. Lucas and Adam Robert BoykoAbstract: Many toxic animals advertise their distastefulness with bright warning patterns. These patterns help predators learn to avoid them, but how the patterns evolve is poorly understood. When a warning pattern first arises, predators are unfamiliar with it and attack the pattern disproportionately. Only after many individuals share the new pattern do predators learn to avoid them. It is difficult to explain how new warning patterns overcome their initial disadvantage, yet warning patterns have not only evolved in numerous species, but they have diversified extensively in many of them. In the Heliconius genus of tropical butterflies, new warning patterns have evolved dozens of times in some species but only once in others. Evolutionary theory predicts that differences in population structure between these species are responsible for their different diversification rates, but this theory is unproven. In this study, the structure of natural populations of Heliconius inhabiting isolated treefall gaps will be measured. This research will be combined with computational simulations of warning pattern evolution in Heliconius to see if evolutionary theory correctly predicts the observed rates of warning pattern diversification in this genus. Alternatively, differences in sexual selection between Heliconius species may account for the different diversification rates by promoting or constraining color pattern evolution. To examine this possibility, mate choice and mate competition will be studied in greenhouse colonies of these species.