Convergence and divergence in snake anti-predator displays: A novel approach to quantitative behavioral comparison
Animals in nature use many strategies to evade or deter their predators. Within venomous snake mimicry, stereotyped anti-predator behaviours are hypothesized to be effective warning signals under strong selection for independent convergence across species. However, no studies have systematically quantified snake anti-predator displays across taxonomically broad clades to examine how these behaviours evolve within a comparative methods framework. Here we describe a new high-throughput approach for collecting and quantifying anti-predator displays in snakes that demonstrates both low observer bias and infinite extension. Then, we show this method’s utility by comparing 20 species spanning 6 taxonomic families from Peru. We found that a simple experimental setup varying simulated predator cues was successful in eliciting displays across species and that high-speed videography captured a great diversity of anti-predator responses. Although display components show complicated patterns of covariance, we found support for behavioural convergence in anti-predator displays among elapid coral snakes and their distantly related mimics. Our approach provides new analytical opportunities for both behaviour and kinematics, especially macroevolutionary analyses across clades with similar difficulty in observing or comparing trait diversity.
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Data repository and source code here.
BibTex:
@article{DavisRaboskyMoore2020,
author = {{A. R. {Davis Rabosky} \& T. Y. Moore} and Ciara M. {S\'{a}nchez-Paredes} and Erin P. {Westeen} and Joanna G. {Larson} and Briana A. {Sealey} and Bailey A. {Balinski}},
title = {{Convergence and divergence in anti-predator displays: A novel approach to quantitative behavioural comparison in snakes}},
journal = {Biological Journal of the Linnean Society},
doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blaa222},
year = {2020}
}