1. Camouflage in arid environments: the case of Sahara-Sahel desert rodents
- Author
-
João Carlos Campos, Ossi Nokelainen, Janne K. Valkonen, Zbyszek Boratyński, Nicholas E. Scott-Samuel, José Carlos Brito, and Lekshmi B. Sreelatha
- Subjects
jyrsijät ,Aquatic Science ,background matching ,Generalist and specialist species ,Predation ,Afrikka ,camouflage ,petoeläimet ,parasitic diseases ,protective colouration ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics ,suojaväri ,saaliseläimet ,Ecology ,Vegetation ,Arid ,crypsis ,aavikot ,Geography ,Habitat ,Camouflage ,Africa ,Crypsis ,Visual Perception ,Cognitive Science ,Animal Science and Zoology ,predation ,Adaptation - Abstract
Deserts and semi-deserts, such as the Sahara-Sahel region in North Africa, are exposed environments with restricted vegetation coverage. Due to limited physical surface structures, these open areas provide a promising ecosystem to understand selection for crypsis. Here, we review knowledge on camouflage adaptation in the Sahara-Sahel rodent community, which represents one of the best documented cases of phenotype-environment convergence comprising a marked taxonomic diversity. Through their evolutionary history, several rodent species from the Sahara-Sahel have repeatedly evolved an accurate background matching against visually-guided predators. Top-down selection by predators is therefore assumed to drive the evolution of a generalist, or compromise, camouflage strategy in these rodents. Spanning a large biogeographic extent and surviving repeated climatic shifts, the community faces extreme and heterogeneous selective pressures, allowing formulation of testable ecological hypotheses. Consequently, Sahara-Sahel rodents poses an exceptional system to investigate which adaptations facilitate species persistence in a mosaic of habitats undergoing climatic change. Studies of these widely distributed communities permits general conclusions about the processes driving adaptation and can give insights into how diversity evolves. peerReviewed
- Published
- 2020