Journal
BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY
Volume 21, Issue 4, Pages 739-746Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arq047
Keywords
color signaling; communication; receiver perception; visual discrimination threshold modeling
Categories
Funding
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [BB/G022887/1]
- Girton College, Cambridge
- Natural Sciences and Engineering and the Social Sciences and Humanities, Research Councils of Canada
- National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), National Institutes of Health (NIH) [CM-20-P40RR003640]
- BBSRC [BB/G022887/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [BB/G022887/1] Funding Source: researchfish
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Animal coloration has provided many classical examples of both natural and sexual selection. Methods to study color signals range from human assessment to models of receiver vision, with objective measurements commonly involving spectrometry or digital photography. However, signal assessment by a receiver is not objective but linked to receiver perception. Here, we use standardized digital photographs of female rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) face and hindquarter regions, combined with estimates of the timing of the female fertile phase, to assess how color varies with respect to this timing. We compare objective color measures (camera sensor responses) with models of rhesus vision (retinal receptor stimulation and visual discriminability). Due to differences in spectral separation between camera sensors and rhesus receptors, camera measures overestimated color variation and underestimated luminance variation compared with rhesus macaques. Consequently, objective digital camera measurements can produce statistically significant relationships that are probably undetectable to rhesus macaques, and hence biologically irrelevant, while missing variation in the measure that may be relevant. Discrimination modeling provided results that were most meaningful (as they were directly related to receiver perception) and were easiest to relate to underlying physiology. Further, this gave new insight into the function of such signals, revealing perceptually salient signal luminance changes outside of the fertile phase that could potentially enhance paternity confusion. Our study demonstrates how, even for species with similar visual systems to humans, models of vision may provide more accurate and meaningful information on the form and function of visual signals than objective color measures do.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available