Spittlebug Polymorphic for Warning Coloration

Nature ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 242 (5393) ◽  
pp. 126-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
VINTON THOMPSON
Keyword(s):  
Warning Coloration

Aposematism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme D. Ruxton ◽  
William L. Allen ◽  
Thomas N. Sherratt ◽  
Michael P. Speed
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Effects ◽  
Warning Coloration ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Initial Evolution ◽  
The Common ◽  
Aposematic Signals

Aposematism is the pairing of two kinds of defensive phenotype: an often repellent secondary defence that typically renders prey unprofitable to predators if they attack them and some evolved signal that indicates the presence of that defence. Aposematic signals often work to modify the behaviours of predators both before and during attacks. Warning coloration, for example, may increase wariness and hence improve the chances that a chemically defended prey is released unharmed after an attack. An aposematic signal may therefore first tend to reduce the probability that a predator commences attack (a primary defence) and then (as a component of secondary defence) reduce the probability that the prey is injured or killed during any subsequent attack. In this chapter we will consider both the primary and the secondary effects of aposematic signals on prey protection. We begin first by describing the common features of aposematic signals and attempting to show the wide use to which aposematic signalling is deployed across animals (and perhaps plants too). We then review the interesting evolutionary issues aposematic signals raise, including their initial evolution and their integration with sexual and other signals. We also discuss important ecological, co-evolutionary, and macroevolutionary consequences of aposematism.

The Natural World

Threats ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 7-46
Author(s):  
David P. Barash
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Warning Coloration ◽  
Daily Lives

This chapter examines how threats, counterthreats, warnings, feints, and deceptions are found throughout the natural world, in the daily lives of animals and even plants. Indeed, these can be seen in plants with thorns and poisons, as well as in animals growling, roaring, baring teeth, showing and exaggerating their weapons (or pretending to have weapons), misrepresenting their ferocity, puffing themselves up, and generally seeking to intimidate their rivals or potential predators. The chapter then considers the role of honesty versus deception: the evolution of warning coloration, whereby brightly colored poison arrow frogs, for example, inform would-be predators that eating them would be a bad idea; and mimicry, in which animals who are not themselves especially dangerous resemble others that are harmful to their predators and thus gain protection via the “empty threat” the former conveys. This, in turn, speaks to the intriguing question of whether a given threat is real or fake, honest or dishonest, and what difference—if any—this makes. The chapter also explains the hawk–dove model of the variations of animal threat, and looks at vocal threats and animal eavesdropping.

scholarly journals The evolution of polymorphism in the warning coloration of the Amazonian poison frog Adelphobates galactonotus

Heredity ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 124 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Rojas ◽  
Albertina P. Lima ◽  
Paolo Momigliano ◽  
Pedro Ivo Simões ◽  
Rachael Y. Dudaniec ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Warning Coloration ◽  
Poison Frog

scholarly journals Does aggression and explorative behaviour decrease with lost warning coloration?

2012 ◽  
Vol 108 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Rudh ◽  
Martin F. Breed ◽  
Anna Qvarnström
Keyword(s):  
Warning Coloration

scholarly journals Linking the evolution and form of warning coloration in nature

2011 ◽  
Vol 279 (1728) ◽  
pp. 417-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Stevens ◽  
Graeme D. Ruxton
Keyword(s):  
Mate Choice ◽  
Evolutionary Ecology ◽  
Classical System ◽  
Warning Signal ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Warning Coloration ◽  
Warning Signals ◽  
Initial Evolution ◽  
Mechanistic Basis ◽  
Future Work

Many animals are toxic or unpalatable and signal this to predators with warning signals (aposematism). Aposematic appearance has long been a classical system to study predator–prey interactions, communication and signalling, and animal behaviour and learning. The area has received considerable empirical and theoretical investigation. However, most research has centred on understanding the initial evolution of aposematism, despite the fact that these studies often tell us little about the form and diversity of real warning signals in nature. In contrast, less attention has been given to the mechanistic basis of aposematic markings; that is, ‘what makes an effective warning signal?’, and the efficacy of warning signals has been neglected. Furthermore, unlike other areas of adaptive coloration research (such as camouflage and mate choice), studies of warning coloration have often been slow to address predator vision and psychology. Here, we review the current understanding of warning signal form, with an aim to comprehend the diversity of warning signals in nature. We present hypotheses and suggestions for future work regarding our current understanding of several inter-related questions covering the form of warning signals and their relationship with predator vision, learning, and links to broader issues in evolutionary ecology such as mate choice and speciation.

Are there general principles of signal design?

1993 ◽  
Vol 340 (1292) ◽  
pp. 251-255 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Signal Design ◽  
Warning Coloration ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Design Result

Explanations of signal design must meet three requirements: they must be logically coherent, they must explain the diversity in size of animal signals and they must explain the diversity in form of signals. Three selection pressures operating on animal signals are discussed: the degree of conflict or cooperation, the ‘efficacy’ of signals and how signalling costs are paid. A distinction is made between cases where costs of signalling are paid in the production of the signal and cases where costs are paid as a consequence of giving a signal on the grounds that differences in signal design result. This is illustrated by reference to the example of warning coloration. It is concluded that general principles still elude us because of the numbers of different selection pressures that operate on the design of animal signals.

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