English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology. All rights reserved. Camouflage via animal coloration and patterning is a broadly important antipredator strategy. Behavioral decision making is an influential facet of many camouflage strategies; fitness benefits often are not realized unless an organism selects suitable backgrounds. Controlled experimental studies of behavioral strategies in selection of backgrounds conferring camouflage, however, are rarely paired with observations of wild populations. In order to investigate how substrate composition influenced habitat preference and selection by juvenile desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii), we completed a manipulative experiment in captivity and an observational study in the wild. In our captive experiment, we found that tortoises spent a greater portion of their time near rocks. We similarly found that wild tortoises preferentially placed themselves in areas with equivalent or larger-sized rocks. Additionally, juvenile tortoises were found to be less detectable on rock substrate by observers than they were on substrate-lacking rocks. We hypothesize that rocks improve juvenile tortoise camouflage and thus that tortoises select for habitat containing rock substrate, in part, due to a survival advantage conferred by such use. The desert tortoise is a threatened species, and the present study provides a model for examining the intersection between behavior and conservation, with implications for how suitable habitat is defined and measured in species conservation programs.

Hiding in plain sight: a study on camouflage and habitat selection in a slow-moving desert herbivore