10.5061/DRYAD.Z34TMPG8F
Twomey, Evan
0000-0002-8001-4343
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul
Kain, Morgan
McMaster University
Claeys, Myriam
Ghent University
Summers, Kyle
East Carolina University
Castroviejo-Fisher, Santiago
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul
Van Bocxlaer, Ines
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Mechanisms for color convergence in a mimetic radiation of poison frogs
Dryad
dataset
2019
color
Reflectance spectra
absorbance spectra
Carotenoid
Pteridine
structural color
iridophore
Transmission electron microscopy
amphibian
Dendrobatidae
mimicry
skin pigments
2019-12-16T00:00:00Z
2019-12-16T00:00:00Z
en
3259414 bytes
4
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
In animals, bright colors often evolve to mimic other species when a
resemblance is selectively favored. Understanding the proximate mechanisms
underlying such color mimicry can give insights into how mimicry evolves,
for example, whether color convergence evolves from a shared set of
mechanisms or through the evolution of novel color production mechanisms.
We studied color production mechanisms in poison frogs (Dendrobatidae),
focusing on the mimicry complex of Ranitomeya imitator. Using reflectance
spectrometry, skin pigment analysis, electron microscopy, and color
modeling, we found that the bright colors of these frogs, both within and
outside the mimicry complex, are largely structural and produced by
iridophores, but that color production depends crucially on interactions
with pigments. Color variation and mimicry is regulated predominantly by
iridophore platelet thickness and, to a lesser extent, concentration of
the red pteridine pigment drosopterin. Compared to each of the four morphs
of model species which it resembles, R. imitator displays greater
variation in both structural and pigmentary mechanisms, which may have
facilitated phenotypic divergence in this species. Analyses of non-mimetic
dendrobatids in other genera demonstrate that these mechanisms are
widespread within the family, and that poison frogs share a complex
physiological “color palette” that can produce diverse and highly
reflective colors.
see manuscript
see README document A description of how to use these scripts is available
in "top_level_text.R" In order to properly use these scripts,
read all of the documentation until the heading "code" Note: The
structural color production model presented here relies on methods (matrix
transfer function "multilayer_adj" in "functions.R")
previously developed by: Maia, R., Caetano, J. V. O., Bao, S. N.,
& Macedo, R. H. (2009). Iridescent structural colour production in
male blue-black grassquit feather barbules: the role of keratin and
melanin. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 6(suppl_2), S203-S211.
See link to projects github repository below
https://github.com/morgankain/Twomey_et_al_color_mimicry