ArticleScientific reports2016
Colour and pattern change against visually heterogeneous backgrounds in the tree frog Hyla japonica.
Article in Scientific reports, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed.
- Color change, background choice, and camouflage in a nocturnal treefrog: implications for circadian adaptation.Zoological research · 2026Article
- The Geographical Variation of Colour Change in the Arabian Killifish (Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- No evidence of quantitative honest signaling in aposematic traits of the green and black dendrobatid frogCurrent zoology · 2025Article
- A macroevolutionary perspective of cryptic coloration in sexually dichromatic grasshoppers of the genus Sphenarium (Orthoptera: Pyrgomorphidae).Oecologia · 2025Article
- Lost for more than a century: the rediscovery ofZooKeys · 2025Article
- Coloration in a Praying Mantis: Color Change, Sexual Color Dimorphism, and Possible Camouflage Strategies.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Characterising the Effect of Wnt/β-Catenin Signalling on Melanocyte Development and Patterning: Insights from Zebrafish (International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Testing multiple hypotheses on the colour change of treefrogs in response to various external conditions.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Camouflage in lichen moths: Field predation experiments and avian vision modelling demonstrate the importance of wing pattern elements and background for survival.The Journal of animal ecology · 2022Article
- A spectacular new species ofPeerJ · 2022Article
- Morphometry of two cryptic tree frog species at their hybrid zone reveals neither intermediate nor transgressive morphotypes.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Generalist camouflage can be more successful than microhabitat specialisation in natural environments.BMC ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Imperfect camouflage: how to hide in a variable world?Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Review
- Improved camouflage through ontogenetic colour change confers reduced detection risk in shore crabs.Functional ecology · 2019Article
- Crocodiles Alter Skin Color in Response to Environmental Color Conditions.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Camouflage through colour change: mechanisms, adaptive value and ecological significance.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2017Review
- Quantifying phenotype-environment matching in the protected Kerry spotted slug (Mollusca: Gastropoda) using digital photography: exposure to UV radiation determines cryptic colour morphs.Frontiers in zoology · 2017Article
- Article
- Phenotypic flexibility in background-mediated color change in sticklebacks.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
- Snake markings facilitate diverse anti-predator functions depending on habitat and viewing angle.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Colour change in animals can be adaptive phenotypic plasticity in heterogeneous environments. Camouflage through background colour matching has been considered a primary force that drives the evolution of colour changing ability. However, the mechanism to which animals change their colour and patterns under visually heterogeneous backgrounds (i.e. consisting of more than one colour) has only been identified in limited taxa. Here, we investigated the colour change process of the Japanese tree frog (Hyla japonica) against patterned backgrounds and elucidated how the expression of dorsal patterns changes against various achromatic/chromatic backgrounds with/without patterns. Our main findings are i) frogs primarily responded to the achromatic differences in background, ii) their contrasting dorsal patterns were conditionally expressed dependent on the brightness of backgrounds, iii) against mixed coloured background, frogs adopted intermediate forms between two colours. Using predator (avian and snake) vision models, we determined that colour differences against different backgrounds yielded perceptible changes in dorsal colours. We also found substantial individual variation in colour changing ability and the levels of dorsal pattern expression between individuals. We discuss the possibility of correlational selection on colour changing ability and resting behaviour that maintains the high variation in colour changing ability within population.
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