Search results for "unpalatability"
showing 2 items of 2 documents
Weak warning signals can persist in the absence of gene flow.
2019
Significance With our comprehensive set of field (model survival), laboratory (controlled learning, palatability, toxin analysis), and molecular data, we provide evidence that polymorphism can persist in an aposematic population, despite expectations of positive frequency-dependent selection. We show that this can happen if prey species carrying a strong signal can exploit predator learning to elicit broad avoidance of many signals, even if predators only have experience with a single signal. This could allow novel signals to be protected within a population of aposematic prey. Thus, under the expectations of broad generalization coupled with limited gene flow, weak aposematic signals can p…
Weak warning signals can persist in the absence of gene flow
2019
Aposematic organisms couple conspicuous warning signals with a secondary defense to deter predators from attacking. Novel signals of aposematic prey are expected to be selected against due to positive frequency-dependent selection. How, then, can novel phenotypes persist after they arise, and why do so many aposematic species exhibit intrapopulation signal variability? Using a polytypic poison frog (Dendrobates tinctorius), we explored the forces of selection on variable aposematic signals using 2 phenotypically distinct (white, yellow) populations. Contrary to expectations, local phenotype was not always better protected compared to novel phenotypes in either population; in the white popul…