Changeable camouflage: how well can flounder resemble the colour and spatial scale of substrates in their natural habitats?

ABSTRACT: Flounder change colour and pattern for camouflage. We used a spectrometer to measure reflectance spectra and a digital camera to capture body patterns of two flounder species camouflaged on four natural backgrounds of different spatial scale (sand, small gravel, large gravel and rocks). We quantified the degree of spectral match between flounder and background relative to the situation of perfect camouflage in which flounder and background were assumed to have identical spectral distribution. Computations were carried out for three biologically relevant observers: monochromatic squid, dichromatic crab and trichromatic guitarfish. Our computations present a new approach to analysing datasets with multiple spectra that have large variance. Furthermore, to investigate the spatial match

SUBMITTER: Akkaynak D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5383827 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature