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Orienting to the sun improves camouflage for bilaterally symmetrical prey

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Mavrovouna_2021_BJLS_Orienting_CC.pdf (251.0Kb)
Date
21/09/2021
Author
Mavrovouna, Veronica
Penacchio, Olivier
Allen, William L.
Keywords
Antipredator
Camouflage
Countershading
Orientation
Predation
Visual ecology
QL Zoology
DAS
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Abstract
Here, we investigate the camouflage consequences of animal orientation behaviour. Shadows can be a conspicuous cue to the presence of prey. For bilaterally symmetrical animals, light field modelling indicates that camouflage will be improved when an animal orients its longitudinal axis directly towards or away from the sun, because the appearance of shadows is minimized. We test this prediction with a field predation experiment, in which wild birds hunt for artificial camouflaged prey oriented with the longitudinal axis either parallel or perpendicular to the sun. We find that prey oriented parallel to the sun are 3.93 times more likely to survive than prey oriented perpendicular to the sun. This result demonstrates the strong orientation dependence of camouflage. Given the dramatic difference in survival of prey with different orientations, we suggest that camouflage should be investigated as an important determinant of the positional behaviour of animals.
Citation
Mavrovouna , V , Penacchio , O & Allen , W L 2021 , ' Orienting to the sun improves camouflage for bilaterally symmetrical prey ' , Biological Journal of the Linnean Society , vol. Advance Articles , blab130 . https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blab130
Publication
Biological Journal of the Linnean Society
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blab130
ISSN
0024-4066
Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2021 The Linnean Society of London. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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URL
https://academic.oup.com/biolinnean/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biolinnean/blab130/6373266#supplementary-data
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/24037

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