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Mate choice—the decision about whom to mate with—is a type of natural selection, since animals must reproduce to pass down their genes. Mate choice is also called intersexual selection because the behavior occurs between the sexes.
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Natural selection influences the frequencies of particular alleles and phenotypes within populations in several different ways. Primarily, natural selection can be directional, stabilizing, or disruptive. Directional selection favors one extreme trait and shifts the population towards that phenotype while selecting against individuals displaying alternate traits. Stabilizing selection favors an intermediate trait with a narrow range of variation. Deviation from the optimal phenotype towards an...
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Manipulation of Color Patterns in Jumping Spiders for Use in Behavioral Experiments
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Evidence for morph-specific substrate choice in a green-brown polymorphic grasshopper.

Pauline Heinze1, Petra Dieker1, Hannah M Rowland2

  • 1Population Ecology Group, Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Dornburger Straße, Jena, Germany.

Behavioral Ecology : Official Journal of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology
|February 24, 2022
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Meadow grasshoppers exhibit color polymorphism. Green morphs prefer green backgrounds, suggesting microhabitat choice aids color morph coexistence and predator avoidance.

Keywords:
AcrididaeGomphocerinaeOrthopterabackground choicebalancing selectioncolor polymorphismmatching habitat choicemicrohabitat choicevisual modeling

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Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Animal Behavior

Background:

  • Orthopteran insects, like the meadow grasshopper (Pseudochorthippus parallelus), display significant color variation, particularly green-brown polymorphism.
  • The ecological and evolutionary mechanisms maintaining this balanced polymorphism are not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if microhabitat choice based on color morph influences the coexistence of different color morphs in Pseudochorthippus parallelus.
  • To determine if differential background preferences contribute to the maintenance of color polymorphism.

Main Methods:

  • Experimental arena testing of substrate choice among three common color morphs (brown, green, intermediate) of Pseudochorthippus parallelus.
  • Measurement of grasshopper and background reflectance.
  • Visual modeling to assess morph detectability by various predators.

Main Results:

  • Uniform green morphs showed a significant preference for green backgrounds.
  • Visual modeling indicated that different predators perceive color morphs differently, with some distinguishing chromatically and others only by brightness.
  • The study suggests that microhabitat choice may play a role in maintaining color polymorphism.

Conclusions:

  • Morph-specific microhabitat selection, potentially driven by crypsis and thermoregulation, could contribute to the maintenance of green-brown polymorphisms in grasshoppers.
  • The detectability of color morphs varies significantly depending on the predator's visual system.
  • Differential microhabitat choices may help equalize fitness among morphs, though the effect size might be small.