No link between nymph and adult coloration in shield bugs: weak selection by predators

Abstract

Many organisms use different antipredator strategies throughout their life, but little is known about the reasons or implications of such changes. For years, it has been suggested that selection by predators should favour uniformity in local warning signals. If this is the case, we would expect high resemblance in colour across life stages in aposematic animals where young and adults share similar morphology and habitat. In this study, we used shield bugs (Hemiptera: Pentatomoidea) to test whether colour and colour diversity evolve similarly at different life stages. Since many of these bugs are considered to be aposematic, we also combined multi-species analyses with predation experiments o..