Animal Behaviour Group, Department of Ecology, Environment and Evolution, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Caulfield East, VIC, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2021 Mar 18;11(1):6383. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-85793-3.
Habitat-specific characteristics can affect signal transmission such that different habitats dictate the optimal signal. One way to examine how the environment influences signals is by comparing changes in signal effectiveness in different habitats. Examinations of signal effectiveness between different habitats has helped to explain signal divergence/convergence between populations and species using acoustic and colour signals. Although previous research has provided evidence for local adaptations and signal divergence in many species of lizards, comparative studies in movement-based signals are rare due to technical difficulties in quantifying movements in nature and ethical restrictions in translocating animals between habitats. We demonstrate herein that these issues can be addressed using 3D animations, and compared the relative performance of the displays of four Australian lizard species in the habitats of each species under varying environmental conditions. Our simulations show that habitats differentially affect signal performance, and an interaction between display and habitat structure. Interestingly, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the signal adapted to the noisier environment does not show an advantage in signal effectiveness, but the noisy habitat was detrimental to the performance of all displays. Our study is one of the first studies for movement-based signals that directly compares signal performance in multiple habitats, and our approach has laid the foundation for future investigations in motion ecology that have been intractable to conventional research methods.
栖息地的特有特征会影响信号传递，使得不同的栖息地决定了最佳信号。一种研究环境如何影响信号的方法是比较不同栖息地中信号有效性的变化。对不同栖息地之间信号有效性的研究有助于解释种群和物种之间的信号趋同/分歧，这些研究使用了声学和颜色信号。尽管先前的研究为许多蜥蜴物种提供了关于局部适应和信号分歧的证据，但由于在自然环境中量化运动以及在栖息地之间转移动物的伦理限制，基于运动的信号的比较研究很少。我们在此证明，这些问题可以通过 3D 动画来解决，并比较了在不同环境条件下，四种澳大利亚蜥蜴物种在其各自栖息地中的展示相对性能。我们的模拟表明，栖息地会对信号性能产生差异影响，并且显示和栖息地结构之间存在相互作用。有趣的是，我们的结果与假设一致，即适应嘈杂环境的信号在信号有效性方面没有优势，但嘈杂的栖息地对所有显示都不利。我们的研究是对基于运动的信号进行的首次研究之一，直接比较了多个栖息地中的信号性能，并且我们的方法为运动生态学的未来研究奠定了基础，这些研究对于传统的研究方法来说是难以处理的。
