Diel activity correlates with colour pattern morphology of heterobranch sea slugs.

ABSTRACT: Visually hunting predators drive the evolution and maintenance of bold visual defences, including aposematic signalling. Such visual signals must be encountered by predators in lighting conditions where the perception of colour patterns is possible. Therefore, aposematic colouration is predicted to evolve in species encountered by visually hunting predators during daytime, with diurnal species most at risk of visual predation. However, colour patterns in diurnal and nocturnal species are highly diverse, and little is known about the relationships between prey colouration and daytime activity. To investigate correlations between daytime activity and colour pattern phenotypes across species, we quantified colour patterns in 45 species (n = 346 individuals) of eastern Australian sea slugs (Ga

SUBMITTER: van den Berg CP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12134456 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature