Any Colour You Like: the ecology and behaviour behind crustacean coloration in a variable world

Summary: Animal coloration plays a pivotal role in survival and reproduction in the natural world and may act as a versatile trait that allows organisms to blend into their environments, warn of toxicity, attract mates, and deceive predators or prey. Benthic invertebrates, such as many crustaceans, occupy a range of different ecosystems and exhibit a remarkable colour diversity, providing them with several forms to hide from predators. However, little is known about how and when the different antipredatory strategies observed in this group are favoured and related to the animal’s life history. In this talk, I cover different topics of animal coloration that I have investigated over my scientific career, especially the physiological and ecological mechanisms maintaining crypsis of benthic crustaceans against variable substrates. Particularly, I will talk about the use of digital imaging and visual modelling allied to experimental work to understand the proximate and ultimate factors controlling the colour diversity of the group and how human impacts are increasingly affecting predator-prey interactions through changes in colour-based defences.

Author: Rafael Duarte 

Room: 9.1.1 

Date and Time: 18 October, 13.00 to 14.00