The significance of prey avoidance behavior for the maintenance of a predator color polymorphism

Helena Ajuria Ibarra, Michael Kinahan, Julien Marcetteau, Andrew J R Mehigan, Ross O Ziegelmeier and Tom Reader

Behavioral Ecology, 2019, vol. 30, issue 1, 240-248

Abstract: Why do some animals have variable color patterns? We show that honeybee behavior can favor the persistence of red, yellow and white patterns in spider predators. Although it is well known that predators can promote morphological diversity in their prey, our study is one of the first to show that the reverse might also happen. Our results add to our understanding of the ecological processes shaping the appearance of animals in natural populations.

Keywords: Apis mellifera; frequency-dependent selection; pollination; predation; Synema globosum (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/ary129 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:30:y:2019:i:1:p:240-248.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().