Detto Tanya, Hemmi Jan M, Backwell Patricia R Y
Centre for Visual Sciences, Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia.
PLoS One. 2008 Feb 20;3(2):e1629. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0001629.
Colour changes in animals may be triggered by a variety of social and environmental factors and may occur over a matter of seconds or months. Crustaceans, like fiddler crabs (genus Uca), are particularly adept at changing their colour and have been the focus of numerous studies. However, few of these studies have attempted to quantitatively describe the individual variation in colour and pattern or their adaptive significance. This paper quantitatively describes the colour patterns of the fiddler crab Uca capricornis and their ability to change on a socially significant timescale. The most dramatic changes in colour pattern are associated with moulting. These ontogenetic changes result in a general reduction of the colour pattern with increasing size, although females are more colourful and variable than similarly-sized males. Uca capricornis are also capable of rapid colour changes in response to stress, but show no endogenous rhythms associated with the semilunar and tidal cycles commonly reported in other fiddler crabs. The extreme colour polymorphism and the relative stability of the colour patterns in Uca capricornis are consistent with their use in visually mediated mate recognition.
动物的颜色变化可能由多种社会和环境因素触发，可能在几秒钟或几个月内发生。甲壳类动物，如招潮蟹（招潮蟹属），特别擅长改变颜色，并且一直是众多研究的焦点。然而，这些研究中很少有试图定量描述颜色和图案的个体差异或它们的适应性意义。本文定量描述了摩氏招潮蟹的颜色图案及其在具有社会意义的时间尺度上发生变化的能力。颜色图案最显著的变化与蜕皮有关。这些个体发育变化导致随着体型增大，颜色图案总体减少，尽管雌性比体型相似的雄性颜色更鲜艳且变化更多。摩氏招潮蟹也能够因应激而迅速改变颜色，但没有表现出与其他招潮蟹通常报道的半月周期和潮汐周期相关的内源性节律。摩氏招潮蟹极端的颜色多态性和颜色图案的相对稳定性与它们在视觉介导的配偶识别中的作用相一致。
