RT Journal Article
T1 Experimental evidence that matching habitat choice drives local adaptation in a wild population.
A1 Camacho, Carlos
A1 Sanabria-Fernández, Alberto
A1 Baños-Villalba, Adrián
A1 Edelaar, Pim
K1 Background colour matching
K1 Local adaptation
K1 Matching habitat choice
K1 Phenotype-environment correlation
K1 Urban adaptation
AB Matching habitat choice is a unique, flexible form of habitat choice based on self-assessment of local performance. This mechanism is thought to play an important role in adaptation and population persistence in variable environments. Nevertheless, the operation of matching habitat choice in natural populations remains to be unequivocally demonstrated. We investigated the association between body colour and substrate use by ground-perching grasshoppers (Sphingonotus azurescens) in an urban mosaic of dark and pale pavements, and then performed a colour manipulation experiment to test for matching habitat choice based on camouflage through background matching. Naturally, dark and pale grasshoppers occurred mostly on pavements that provided matching backgrounds. Colour-manipulated individuals recapitulated this pattern, such that black-painted and white-painted grasshoppers recaptured after the treatment aggregated together on the dark asphalt and pale pavement, respectively. Our study demonstrates that grasshoppers adjust their movement patterns to choose the substrate that confers an apparent improvement in camouflage given their individual-specific colour. More generally, our study provides unique experimental evidence of matching habitat choice as a driver of phenotype–environment correlations in natural populations and, furthermore, suggests that performance-based habitat choice might act as a mechanism of adaptation to changing environments, including human-modified (urban) landscapes.
PB The Royal Society Publishing
YR 2020
FD 2020
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10433/19812
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10433/19812
LA en
NO Camacho Carlos, Sanabria-Fernández Alberto, Baños-Villalba Adrián and Edelaar Pim 2020Experimental evidence that matching habitat choice drives local adaptation in a wild populationProc. R. Soc. B.2872020072120200721http://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.0721
NO The data supporting the results of this study are available from the Dryad Digital Repository: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.qbzkh18dv.This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (grants ref. no. CGL2013-49460-EXP and CGL2016-79483-P to P.E.; grant ref. BES-2013-062905 to A.B.-V.) with support from the European Regional Development Fund.
NO Biología Molecular e Ingeniería Bioquímica
DS RIO
RD May 9, 2026