maîtriser l’érismature rousse pour protéger l’érismature à tête blanche

Dossier thématique : Les mammifères à piquants

Point de vue : Mieux connaître le hérisson pour mieux le protéger dans son milieu naturel

A wide array of mammal species have adapted seasonal coat color change, shifting from brownish summer coats to white-ish winter coats to match their environment. Climate change has already begun to affect the extent and timing of snow cover, leaving many individuals and populations now mismatched to their backgrounds for part of the year. Ferreira et al. looked at the genetics underlying these coat color changes and their variation across populations in white-tailed jack rabbits. Patterns of variation at three specific genes drove coat color change and differed across populations. Models suggest that standing variation across these genes and populations may allow for rapid adaptation to reduced snow cover and browner coats in this species. —

Habitat factors influencing the breeding birds on animal farms: can modern agricultural infrastructure be good for birds

• Artur Golawski, Zbigniew Kasprzykowski, Henryk Kot

Using bright coloration to warn predators off of toxic prey, or aposematism, presents a conundrum in evolution. How do brightly colored organisms survive long enough to warn predators when they are easier to predate than their cryptic peers? Loeffler-Henry et al. used a large phylogeny of amphibians with known warning coloration to assess how such displays evolve. After comparing a series of models, they determined that aposematism likely appears through intermediate steps in which coloration is only visible when an organism is fleeing or intentionally displaying a hidden feature. This work demonstrates how the cost of such a trait may be circumvented through intermediary phenotypes.