Three-butterfly system provides a field test of müllerian mimicry

Durrell D. Kapan ()
Additional contact information
Durrell D. Kapan: Universidad de Puerto Rico—Rio Piedras

Nature, 2001, vol. 409, issue 6818, 338-340

Abstract: Abstract In 1879, Müller proposed that two brightly coloured distasteful butterfly species (co-models) that share a single warning-colour pattern would benefit by spreading the selective burden of educating predators1,2,3,4,5. The mutual benefit of sharing warning signals among distasteful species, so-called müllerian mimicry, is supported by comparative evidence2,3, theoretical studies5,6 and laboratory simulations7; however, to date, this key exemplar of adaptive evolution has not been experimentally tested in the field. To measure natural selection generated by müllerian mimicry, I exploited the unusual polymorphism of Heliconius cydno (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae)8. Here I show increased survival of H. cydno morphs that match locally abundant monomorphic co-model species. This study demonstrates müllerian mimicry in the field. It also shows that müllerian mimicry with several co-models generates geographically divergent selection, which explains the existence of polymorphism in distasteful species with warning coloration9.

Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/35053066 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nat:nature:v:409:y:2001:i:6818:d:10.1038_35053066

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/35053066

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().