image: This is the hairy-footed flower bee, Anthophora plumipes. view more
Credit: Image courtesy of Steven Falk (photographer)
A study suggests that climate change-associated seasonal shifts alter the effectiveness of animal mimicry. Batesian mimics are organisms with traits that imitate poisonous or otherwise dangerous prey, allowing the mimics to evade predators. Christopher Hassall and colleagues report that climate change-associated seasonal shifts, such as earlier springs, differently affect each player in a Batesian mimicry system. The authors focused on hoverflies, insects that visually, acoustically, and behaviorally mimic stinging wasps and bees, thus reducing predation by birds. The authors developed two computational approaches using the human visual system as a proxy for that of birds. In the first experiment, the authors tested the relationships of 42 hoverfly and 56 bee and wasp species by asking study participants to rate the similarity of randomly selected pairs of species. A total of 2,352 possible pairings were tested online more than 30,000 times. Next, the authors identified pairings whose spring emergence had been altered by climate change. To explore the consequences of seasonal shifts, participants played the role of predators in a computer game in which they earned points for "eating" the mimic and lost points for "eating" the bee or wasp. The results indicate that mimics, models, and predators experience different costs and benefits depending on whether the mimics or models appear first or whether they co-emerge, according to the authors.
Article #18-13367: "Climate-induced phenological shifts in a Batesian mimicry complex," by Christopher Hassall, Jac Billington, and Thomas Sherratt.
MEDIA CONTACT: Christopher Hassall, University of Leeds, UNITED KINGDOM; tel: +44 01133435578, +44 07758914309, e-mail: c.hassall@leeds.ac.uk
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Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences