Elsevier

Animal Behaviour

Volume 66, Issue 3, September 2003, Pages 541-550
Animal Behaviour

Regular Articles
Conspicuous males suffer higher predation risk: visual modelling and experimental evidence from lizards

https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2003.2235Get rights and content

Abstract

Colour pattern variation is a striking and widespread phenomenon. Differential predation risk between individuals is often invoked to explain colour variation, but empirical support for this hypothesis is equivocal. We investigated differential conspicuousness and predation risk in two species of Australian rock dragons, Ctenophorus decresii andC. vadnappa . To humans, the coloration of males of these species varies between ‘bright’ and ‘dull’. Visual modelling based on objective colour measurements and the spectral sensitivities of avian visual pigments showed that dragon colour variants are differentially conspicuous to the visual system of avian predators when viewed against the natural background. We conducted field experiments to test for differential predation risk, using plaster models of ‘bright’ and ‘dull’ males. ‘Bright’ models were attacked significantly more often than ‘dull’ models suggesting that differential conspicuousness translates to differential predation risk in the wild. We also examined the influence of natural geographical range on predation risk. Results from 22 localities suggest that predation rates vary according to whether predators are familiar with the prey species. This study is among the first to demonstrate both differential conspicuousness and differential predation risk in the wild using an experimental protocol. Copyright 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. 

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    f1

    Correspondence and present address: D. Stuart-Fox, School of Animal, Plant & Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, South Africa (email: [email protected]).

    f2

    A. Moussalli is at the Department of Zoology & Entomology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia.

    f3

    N. J. Marshall is at the Vision, Touch and Hearing Research Centre, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Q 4072, Australia.

    f4

    I. P. F. Owens is at the Department of Biological Sciences and NERC Centre for Population Biology, Imperial College at Silwood Park, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 7PY, U.K.

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