| Autor: |
Hantak MM; Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA., Guralnick RP; Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA., Cameron AC; Department of Biology and Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA., Griffing AH; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.; Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee, WI 53233, USA., Harrington SM; Department of Herpetology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024-5192, USA.; INBRE Data Science Core, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA., Weinell JL; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity Institute, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA., Paluh DJ; Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. |
| Abstrakt: |
Animal colour is a complex trait shaped by multiple selection pressures that can vary across geography. The thermal melanism hypothesis predicts that darker coloration is beneficial to animals in colder regions because it allows for more rapid solar absorption. Here, we use community science images of three closely related species of North American ratsnakes (genus Pantherophis ) to examine if climate predicts colour variation across range-wide scales. We predicted that darker individuals are found in colder regions and higher elevations, in accordance with the thermal melanism hypothesis. Using an unprecedented dataset of over 8000 images, we found strong support for temperature as a key predictor of darker colour, supporting thermal melanism. We also found that elevation and precipitation are predictive of colour, but the direction and magnitude of these effects were more variable across species. Our study is the first to quantify colour variation in Pantherophis ratsnakes, highlighting the value of community science images for studying range-wide colour variation. |
