Mimics here and there, but not everywhere: Mullerian mimicry in Ceroglossus ground beetles?

ABSTRACT: The ground beetle genus Ceroglossus contains co-distributed species that show pronounced intraspecific diversity in the form of geographical colour morphs. While colour morphs among different species appear to match in some geographical regions, in others, there is little apparent colour matching. Mimicry is a potential explanation for covariation in colour patterns, but it is not clear whether the degree of sympatric colour matching is higher than expected by chance given the obvious mismatches among morphs in some regions. Here, we used reflectance spectrometry to quantify elytral coloration from the perspective of an avian predator to test whether colour similarity between species is, indeed, higher in sympatry. After finding no significant phylogenetic signal in the colour data, analys

SUBMITTER: Munoz-Ramirez CP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5046924 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature