Branney Aidan B, Abernathy Heather N, Conner L Mike, Garrison Elina, Cherry Michael J
Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute Texas A&M University-Kingsville Kingsville Texas USA.
Present address: California Department of Fish and Wildlife Rancho Cardova California USA.
Ecol Evol. 2024 Jan 16;14(1):e10754. doi: 10.1002/ece3.10754. eCollection 2024 Jan.
We document the presence of bobcats () that demonstrate melanism in the Greater Everglades. The South Florida landscape is driven by a myriad of disturbance regimes particularly that of short fire intervals. We monitored 180 camera traps for 3 years and obtained 9503 photographs of bobcats 25 (<0.5%) of these detections included melanistic individuals. Our observations and historical accounts suggest melanism is a phenotype that persists, albeit it at an exceedingly low frequency, in bobcats in the region. While we do not know if the expression of melanism conferred a fitness benefit in our system, the vegetation structure that was characterized by frequently burned uplands and low-light and densely vegetated swamps produced conditions that may render a benefit from melanism through enhanced crypsis. The investigation of rare phenomenon in ecology is important yet difficult within a given field study, but reporting novel observations, like melanism in bobcats, allows for science to gain insight across studies that would not be otherwise possible.
我们记录了在大沼泽地出现的表现出黑化现象的短尾猫。南佛罗里达的景观受到无数干扰机制的驱动，尤其是短火灾间隔。我们对180个相机陷阱进行了3年的监测，获得了9503张短尾猫的照片，其中25张（<0.5%）检测到的个体为黑化个体。我们的观察和历史记录表明，黑化是该地区短尾猫中一种持续存在的表型，尽管其频率极低。虽然我们不知道黑化的表达在我们的系统中是否带来了适应性优势，但以频繁燃烧的高地以及低光照和植被茂密的沼泽为特征的植被结构产生了一些条件，黑化可能通过增强保护色而带来益处。在特定的实地研究中，对生态学中罕见现象的研究既重要又困难，但报告像短尾猫黑化这样的新观察结果，能让科学界从各项研究中获得原本无法获得的见解。
