Co-mimics drive local variation in pFDS on balanced polymorphism
Lastly, we tested for variation in local selection to explain the geographic differences in the balanced warning color polymorphism inH. doris . For this, we leveraged differences in the presence of red comimics at coastal versus inland sites in French Guiana. At coastal sites, H. erato and H. melpomene morphs are characterized by an all-black hindwing that lacks red rays. However, at inland sites,H. erato and H. melpomene morphs have red rays that are strikingly similar to H. doris red rays. At coastal and inland sites H. sara , which is a co-mimic of the blue warning color, is found at high frequencies. Similar to the analyses above, we used FT tests to determine if attacks were different on red morphs, blue mophs or controls, in either coastal or inland sites. We predict that pFDS would result in red morphs being attacked more at coastal sites that lack the red co-mimics.
We found no evidence of red morphs being attacked significantly more than blue morphs or the controls at the coastal sites (n = 557; p > 1.0). However, at the inland sites we found that the red morphs were attached significantly less than blue morphs and controls (n = 588; p < 0.027). These results suggest that the presence of co-mimics confers greater protection for red morphs, however a lack of co-mimics does not appear to result in greater predation pressures for the red morphs.