Journal article

A test of the coevolution theory of autumn colours: colour preference of Rhopalosiphum padi on Prunus padus

  • Archetti, Marco Unit Ecology and Evolution, Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland - Department of Zoology, Oxford University, UK
  • Leather, Simon R. Department of Biological Sciences, Imperial College London, Ascot, UK
    13.05.2005
Published in:
  • Oikos. - 2005, vol. 110, no. 2, p. 339-343
English According to the coevolution theory of autumn colours, the bright colours of trees evolved as a warning signal towards parasites colonizing the plant in autumn. We monitored colonization of the aphid Rhopalosiphum padi on individual tress of Prunus padus in autumn and observed a strong preference of aphids for trees with green leaves. This is the first direct observation of a key assumption of the theory, that parasites avoid bright colours. Moreover our observations, compared with previous data gathered on the same species, suggest that aphids colonizing trees with green leaves develop better in spring than aphids colonizing trees with bright autumn colours, which is consistent with the second main assumption of the coevolution theory.
Faculty
Faculté des sciences et de médecine
Department
Département de Biologie
Language
  • English
Classification
Biological sciences
License
License undefined
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/299930
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