Conservation implications of anthropogenic impacts on visual communication and camouflage

© 2016 Society for Conservation Biology.

Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology. - 1989. - 31(2017), 1 vom: 28. Feb., Seite 30-39
1. Verfasser: Delhey, Kaspar (VerfasserIn)
Weitere Verfasser: Peters, Anne
Format: Online-Aufsatz
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: 2017
Zugriff auf das übergeordnete Werk:Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology
Schlagworte:Journal Article cambio climático climate change color contaminación cripsis crypsis degradación del hábitat habitat degradation light mehr... luz pollution turbidez del agua urbanización urbanization water turbidity
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:© 2016 Society for Conservation Biology.
Anthropogenic environmental impacts can disrupt the sensory environment of animals and affect important processes from mate choice to predator avoidance. Currently, these effects are best understood for auditory and chemosensory modalities, and recent reviews highlight their importance for conservation. We examined how anthropogenic changes to the visual environment (ambient light, transmission, and backgrounds) affect visual communication and camouflage and considered the implications of these effects for conservation. Human changes to the visual environment can increase predation risk by affecting camouflage effectiveness, lead to maladaptive patterns of mate choice, and disrupt mutualistic interactions between pollinators and plants. Implications for conservation are particularly evident for disrupted camouflage due to its tight links with survival. The conservation importance of impaired visual communication is less documented. The effects of anthropogenic changes on visual communication and camouflage may be severe when they affect critical processes such as pollination or species recognition. However, when impaired mate choice does not lead to hybridization, the conservation consequences are less clear. We suggest that the demographic effects of human impacts on visual communication and camouflage will be particularly strong when human-induced modifications to the visual environment are evolutionarily novel (i.e., very different from natural variation); affected species and populations have low levels of intraspecific (genotypic and phenotypic) variation and behavioral, sensory, or physiological plasticity; and the processes affected are directly related to survival (camouflage), species recognition, or number of offspring produced, rather than offspring quality or attractiveness. Our findings suggest that anthropogenic effects on the visual environment may be of similar importance relative to conservation as anthropogenic effects on other sensory modalities
Beschreibung:Date Completed 04.01.2018
Date Revised 02.12.2018
published: Print-Electronic
Citation Status MEDLINE
ISSN:1523-1739
DOI:10.1111/cobi.12834