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The evolution of müllerian mimicry in multispecies communities

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Abstract

Prey species that are unprofitable to attack often share conspicuous colours and patterns with other coexisting defended species1,2,3,4,5,6. This phenomenon, termed müllerian mimicry2,3, has long been explained as a consequence of selection on defended prey to adopt a common way of advertising their unprofitability7,8. However, studies using two unpalatable prey types have not always supported this theory9,10,11,12. Here we show, using a system of humans hunting for computer-generated prey, that predators do not always generate strong selection for mimicry when there are two unprofitable prey types. By contrast, we demonstrate that when predators are faced with a range of different prey species, selection on unprofitable prey to resemble one another can be intense. Here the primary selective force is not one in which predators evaluate the profitabilities of distinct prey types independently, but one in which predators learn better to avoid unprofitable phenotypes that share traits distinguishing them from profitable prey13,14. This need to simplify decision making readily facilitates the spread of imperfect mimetic forms from rarity, and suggests that müllerian mimicry is more likely to arise in multispecies communities.

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Figure 1: Results from experiment 1.
Figure 2: A summary of experiments 2–5, in which human subjects foraged in a community of profitable and unprofitable prey.
Figure 3: The mean proportions (± 1 s.e.) of each of the three forms of focal unprofitable prey attacked in experiments 2–4.

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Acknowledgements

C.D.B. and K.B. collected the data, whereas T.N.S. helped design the experiments and developed the computer program. We thank F. Batiste, A. Rashed, G. Ruxton, M. Speed, H. Van Gossum and D. Wilkinson for comments on our manuscript. The research was approved by the Carleton University Research Ethics Committee and conducted according to the guidelines set out in the Tri-Council Policy Statement on Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans. The work was supported by grants to T.N.S. from NSERC, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Innovation Trust.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 5B6, Canada

    Christopher D. Beatty, Kirsten Beirinckx & Thomas N. Sherratt

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  1. Christopher D. Beatty
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  2. Kirsten Beirinckx
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  3. Thomas N. Sherratt
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Correspondence to Thomas N. Sherratt.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Figure 1

Screen shot of our computer-generated foraging arena. (DOC 84 kb)

Supplementary Figure 2

Probability of attack related to encounter sequence in experiments 3a-c and 4a-c. (DOC 40 kb)

Supplementary Figure 3

Mean total scores of our predators and their standard errors for experiments 2-5. (DOC 34 kb)

Supplementary Table

A more detailed summary of the results of experiment 1. (DOC 50 kb)

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Beatty, C., Beirinckx, K. & Sherratt, T. The evolution of müllerian mimicry in multispecies communities. Nature 431, 63–66 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02818

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