Yu Hongmin, Lin Zhixue, Xiao Fanrong
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Ecology of Tropical Islands, Key Laboratory of Tropical Animal and Plant Ecology of Hainan Province, College of Life Sciences Hainan Normal University Haikou China.
Ecol Evol. 2024 May 13;14(5):e11434. doi: 10.1002/ece3.11434. eCollection 2024 May.
Animal camouflage serves a dual purpose in that it enhances both predation efficiency and anti-predation strategies, such as background matching, disruptive coloration, countershading, and masquerade, for predators and prey, respectively. Although body size and shape determine the appearance of animals, potentially affecting their camouflage effectiveness, research over the past two centuries has primarily focused on animal coloration. Over the past two decades, attention has gradually shifted to the impact of body size and shape on camouflage. In this review, we discuss the impact of animal body size and shape on camouflage and identify research issues and challenges. A negative correlation between background matching effectiveness and an animal's body size has been reported, whereas flatter body shapes enhance background matching. The effectiveness of disruptive coloration is also negatively correlated with body size, whereas irregular body shapes physically disrupt the body outline, reducing the visibility of true edges and making it challenging for predators to identify prey. Countershading is most likely in larger mammals with smaller individuals, whereas body size is unrelated to countershading in small-bodied taxa. Body shape influences a body reflectance, affecting the form of countershading coloration exhibited by animals. Animals employing masquerade achieve camouflage by resembling inanimate objects in their habitats in terms of body size and shape. Empirical and theoretical research has found that body size affects camouflage strategies by determining key aspects of an animal's appearance and predation risk and that body shape plays a role in the form and effectiveness of camouflage coloration. However, the mechanisms underlying these adaptations remain elusive, and a relative dearth of research on other camouflage strategies. We underscore the necessity for additional research to investigate the interplay between animal morphology and camouflage strategies and their coevolutionary development, and we recommend directions for future research.
动物伪装具有双重作用，它分别提高了捕食者的捕食效率和猎物的反捕食策略，如背景匹配、破坏色、反荫蔽和拟态。尽管体型和形状决定了动物的外观，可能会影响它们的伪装效果，但过去两个世纪的研究主要集中在动物的颜色上。在过去二十年中，注意力逐渐转向体型和形状对伪装的影响。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了动物体型和形状对伪装的影响，并确定了研究问题和挑战。据报道，背景匹配效果与动物体型呈负相关，而较扁平的体型增强了背景匹配。破坏色的效果也与体型呈负相关，而不规则的体型会在物理上破坏身体轮廓，降低真实边缘的可见性，使捕食者难以识别猎物。反荫蔽在较大的哺乳动物中最有可能出现，而较小的个体则不然，而体型与小型类群的反荫蔽无关。身体形状会影响身体反射率，影响动物表现出的反荫蔽颜色的形式。采用拟态的动物通过在体型和形状上类似于其栖息地中的无生命物体来实现伪装。实证和理论研究发现，体型通过决定动物外观和捕食风险的关键方面来影响伪装策略，而身体形状在伪装颜色的形式和效果中发挥作用。然而，这些适应背后的机制仍然难以捉摸，并且对其他伪装策略的研究相对较少。我们强调需要进行更多研究，以调查动物形态与伪装策略之间的相互作用及其共同进化发展，并推荐未来研究的方向。
