Camouflage Effects of Various Colour-Marking Morphs against Different Microhabitat Backgrounds in a Polymorphic Pygmy Grasshopper Tetrix japonica 英文参考文献.docVIP

CamouflageEffectsofVariousColour-MarkingMorphs againstDifferentMicrohabitatBackgroundsina PolymorphicPygmyGrasshopperTetrixjaponica KaoriTsurui*,AtsushiHonma¤,TakayoshiNishida LaboratoryofInsectEcology,GraduateSchoolofAgriculture,KyotoUniversity,Sakyo,Kyoto,Japan Abstract Background: Colour-marking polymorphism is widely distributed among cryptic species. To account for the adaptive significance ofsuch polymorphisms, several hypotheses havebeen proposedto date.Although these hypotheses argue overthedegreeofcamouflageeffectsofmarkingmorphs(andtheinteractionsbetweenmorphsandtheirmicrohabitat backgrounds),asfarasweknow,mostempiricalevidencehasbeenprovidedunderunnaturalconditions(i.e.,usingartificial prey). Methodology/Principal Findings: Tetrix japonica, a pygmy grasshopper, is highly polymorphic in colour-markings and occursinbothsandandgrassmicrohabitats.Evenwithinamicrohabitat,T.japonicaishighlypolymorphic.Usinghumansas dummy predators and printed photographs in which various morphs of grasshoppers were placed against different backgrounds, we addressed three questions to test the neutral, background heterogeneity, and differential crypsis hypotheses in four marking-type morphs: 1) do the morphs differ in the degree of crypsis in each microhabitat, 2) are differentmorphsmostcrypticinspecificbackgroundsofthemicrohabitats,and3)doesthemorphfrequencyreflectthe degreeofcrypsis? Conclusions/Significance: The degree ofcamouflage differed amongthe four morphs; therefore, theneutral hypothesis was rejected. Furthermore, the order of camouflage advantage among morphs differed depending on the two types of backgrounds (sand and grass), although the grass background consistently provided greater camouflage effects. Thus, based on our results, we could not reject the background heterogeneity hypothesis. Under field conditions, the more crypticmorphscomprisedaminorityofthepopulation.Overall,ourresultsdemonstratethatthedifferentmorphswerenot equivalent in the degree of crypsis,