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Blog Post 10 - Concluding Hiding in Plain Sight Evolution is one of the most significant concepts in biology. The process of evolution by natural selection has produced and continues to produce some of the most intriguing and amazing traits found in living organisms. Mimicry is regularly acclaimed as one of the most clear-cut examples of evolution by natural selection since impressive morphological similarity between a mimic and its model evolves in response to various selection pressures, in particular predation (Wilson et al. 2013).  Source: http://microamaze.blogspot.com/2015/11/animal-mimicry.html  Retrieved on: 22/05/2019 Over the last 9 blog posts we have found out that mimicry accounts for situations in nature where (1) types of organisms by way of identical key signatures elicit an identical response in a perceiving animal, although (2) the perceiving animal earns positive consequences from responding to one type and negative consequences from re...
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Blog Post 9 – Automimicry Explained Further  & an Example It is widely assumed that prey were cryptic and defended before evolving some kind of warning signal. However, focusing on the mechanisms that drove the evolution of defensive display may prevent examination of a pivotal event in the evolution of aposematism, the evolution of the secondary defence that is to be displayed (Speed et al. 2006). Secondary defences can be costly to generate and maintain so their evolution may need special consideration (Ruxton and Speed, 2005; Skelhorn and Rowe, 2007). If defences often evolve before aposematic displays in prey animals, there is a paradox: why should prey invest in costly secondary defences if they are already well-protected by crypsis? (Speed et al. 2006). Two general explanations can resolve this issue. The first is via preadaptation. A prey species may already possess a trait that happens to provide some protection against a predator (Speed et al. 2006). For exa...
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