Gwendolen M. Rodgers
Mixed-phenotype grouping: the interaction between oddity and crypsis
Rodgers, Gwendolen M.; Kimbell, Helen; Morrell, Lesley J.
Authors
Helen Kimbell
Professor Lesley Morrell L.Morrell@hull.ac.uk
Associate Dean, Education (Faculty of Science and Engineering)
Abstract
Aggregations of different-looking animals are frequently seen in nature, despite well-documented selection pressures on individuals to maintain phenotypically homogenous groups. Two well-known theories, the ‘confusion effect’ (reduced ability of a predator to accurately target an individual in a group) and the ‘oddity effect’ (preferential targeting of phenotypically distinct, ‘odd’, individuals) act together to predict the evolution of behaviours in prey that lead to groups of animals that are homogeneous in appearance. In contrast, a recently proposed mechanism suggests that mixed groups could be maintained if one species in a mixed group is more conspicuous against the habitat than the other, as confusion effects generated by the conspicuous species impede predator targeting of the cryptic species; thus, cryptic species benefit from association with conspicuous ones. We test these contrasting predictions from the perspective of both predators and prey, and show that cryptic individual Daphnia are at reduced risk of predation from three-spine sticklebacks Gasterosteus aculeatus when in mixed-phenotype groups, a risk that is reduced further as the number of conspicuous individuals increases, supporting the hypothesis for the evolution of mixed groups. In contrast, while the preference for associating with colour-matched conspecifics by mollies (Poecilia sphenops) was reduced when they were cryptic, we found no evidence for active association with conspicuous conspecifics. We conclude that prey animals must balance the relative risks of oddity and conspicuousness in their social decisions, and that this could potentially lead to the evolution of mixed-phenotype grouping as a response to predation risk alone.
Citation
Rodgers, G. M., Kimbell, H., & Morrell, L. J. (2013). Mixed-phenotype grouping: the interaction between oddity and crypsis. Oecologia, 172(1), 59-68. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-012-2473-y
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Sep 6, 2012 |
Online Publication Date | Oct 19, 2012 |
Publication Date | 2013-05 |
Deposit Date | Nov 13, 2014 |
Publicly Available Date | Nov 23, 2017 |
Journal | Oecologia |
Print ISSN | 0029-8549 |
Publisher | Springer Verlag |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 172 |
Issue | 1 |
Pages | 59-68 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-012-2473-y |
Keywords | Mixed-species group, Inter-specific grouping, Oddity effect, Confusion effect, Predation |
Public URL | https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/470169 |
Publisher URL | http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00442-012-2473-y |
Additional Information | Author's accepted manuscript of article published in: Oecologia, 2013, v.172, issue 1. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00442-012-2473-y |
Contract Date | Nov 23, 2017 |
Files
2013 Rodgers et al - MixedPheno.pdf
(358 Kb)
PDF
You might also like
Building a competence-based model for the academic development of programme leaders
(2023)
Journal Article
Computerized stimuli for studying oddity effects
(2019)
Journal Article
Iterated assessment and feedback improves student outcomes
(2019)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Repository@Hull
Administrator e-mail: repository@hull.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2025
Advanced Search