female common bluetail damselfly northern ca

Species-specific differences in visual spectral sensitivities can lead to a significant bias when analyzing color discrimination abilities. Previous studies have interpreted the effect of multiple female morphs in damselflies on mating frequencies mainly from the human visual perspective, ,, not taking into account that the perceptual capacity for colors significantly differs between humans and damselflies. Some have up to five photoreceptor types ranging from UV to long wavelengths –. The second reason why ischnuran damselflies are a useful model for signaling and perception studies, lies in the fact that the Odonata as a whole (damselflies and dragonflies) have well-developed vision. Whether and how the body colors indeed influence mate choice behavior needs to be investigated from the damselflies' visual perspective. However, to date there have been few detailed studies examining the spectral sensitivities of the visual photoreceptors and the body reflection in damselflies. Body coloration has always been assumed to be an important cue in mate choice and reproduction of ischnuran damselflies. Female-limited polymorphism is believed to have evolved due to sexual conflicts over mating frequencies in terms of sexual selection. Andromorph females have a male-like appearance, and gynomorph females express a distinctly different color to males or andromorphs. Firstly, ischnuran damselflies display diverse body colorations with polymorphism commonly confined to females, making mate choice a challenge. Ischnuran damselflies (Odonata: Zygoptera: Coenagrionidae) are an excellent animal model to investigate the evolutionary arms race between color signals and perception for two reasons. The ability to accurately detect visual signals not only helps animals to recognize potential mates, it also reduces the energy cost involved in mate searching. Good signal perception ability is particularly important for polymorphic animals, because the existence of multiple inter- and/or intra-sexual morphs is a significant challenge during mate choice in a reproductive site. Successful signaling via colors relies on the capacity of receivers to discriminate the target against the background noise. Signal emission and perception in a given visual system plays a crucial role in animal communication. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: JR and JM are PLOS ONE Editorial Board Members. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: This work was supported in part by an International Postgraduate Research Scholarship fellowship to S-CH, Asian Office of Aerospace Research Development AFOSR grant to JM and T-HC, and an ARC grant to JM. Received: NovemAccepted: JanuPublished: January 31, 2014Ĭopyright: © 2014 Huang et al. PLoS ONE 9(1):Įditor: Chuan-Chin Chiao, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan Our study provides the first comprehensive evidence for the function of body coloration on mate choice in polymorphic damselflies.Ĭitation: Huang S-c, Chiou T-h, Marshall J, Reinhard J (2014) Spectral Sensitivities and Color Signals in a Polymorphic Damselfly. Finally, these findings were supported by field observations of natural mating pairs showing that mating partners are indeed chosen based on their body coloration.

We further demonstrate that different color morphs can be discriminated against each other and the vegetation based on color contrast. heterosticta have at least three types of photoreceptors sensitive to UV, blue, and green wavelength, and that this visual perception ability enables them to detect the spectral properties of the color signals emitted from the various color morphs in both males and females. We measured body color reflectance and investigated the visual capacities of each morph, showing that I. We investigated this question in the Australian common blue tail damselfly, Ischnura heterosticta, which has pronounced female-limited polymorphism: andromorphs have a male-like blue coloration and gynomorphs display green/grey colors. However, solid evidence for this hypothesis combining physiological with spectral and behavioral data is scarce. Behavioral studies suggest that polymorphic damselflies use their varying body colorations and/or color patterns as communication signal for mate choice and to control mating frequencies.

Good signal perception abilities are particularly important for polymorphic animals where mate choice can be a challenge.

Animal communication relies on conspicuous signals and compatible signal perception abilities.

Female common bluetail damselfly northern ca