Color pattern facilitates species recognition but not signal detection: A field test using robots

Abstract

There are many factors that affect signal design, including the need for rapid signal detection and the ability to identify the signal as conspecific. Understanding these different sources of selection on signal design is essential to explain the evolution of both signal complexity and signal diversity. We assessed the relative importance of detection and recognition for signal design in the blackbearded gliding lizard, Draco melanopogon, which uses the extension and retraction of a large, black-and-white dewlap (or throat fan) in territorial communication. We presented free-living lizards with robots displaying dewlaps of different designs that varied in the proportion of the black and whit..