Hmm, what about the burglar alarm? Dinoflagellate luminescence (sparked 😉 by mysids) = predation of mysids by my fav fish, Porichthys link.springer.com/article/10.1... - ThreadSky

emilylau.bsky.social • 98 days ago

Hmm, what about the burglar alarm? Dinoflagellate luminescence (sparked 😉 by mysids) = predation of mysids by my fav fish, Porichthys

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00702463

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nikohensley.bsky.social•98 days ago

I hadn’t seen this paper so that’s excellent!

ostratodd.bsky.social•98 days ago

For a bit more context, I am arguing that when it's a display or signal, an adaptive hypothesis is that biolum should evolve to be MORE detectable by receivers. The reviewer brought up eavesdroppers and suggests that as a brake on increasing detectability

ostratodd.bsky.social•98 days ago

Sure, there is counter-illumination, but that is not a signal or display; that's for camo. So the only case I can think of where there is a fitness cost to detectability of a signal/display is femme fatale

ostratodd.bsky.social•98 days ago

The spider sitch that Steve brought up in an interesting case. But even there, I imagine the ff just gets caught in the web, so the detectability of its signal doesn't very directly affect the fitness of the firefly

ostratodd.bsky.social•98 days ago

Although indirectly, I suppose; if more detectable ff biolumescence -> feeding more predatory spiders b/c they are better at capturing prey -> more predation on the same firefly sp. But that is species-level selection perhaps and quite convoluted for a sentence or two in a broad review article

nikohensley.bsky.social•98 days ago

As a cost to signal intensity (which I believe is what you are talking about with respect to detectability), there’s energetics which might limit maximum intensity of a signal. And perceptual constraints of receivers might impose diminishing returns to increases in signal intensity as well.

emilylau.bsky.social•98 days ago

Also I wonder if ostracods are more vulnerable to predation during bioluminescent courtship signaling. If so, that could be another example of “eavesdropping” by predators to locate prey?

emilylau.bsky.social•98 days ago

(If you considered intra-specific interactions as eavesdropping, then the “sneaker male” ostracods, which follow the displaying males, would be another example)

ostratodd.bsky.social•98 days ago

Yeah, Steve brought that up too. There is something I don't understand about replies on Bluesky because Steve's reply is in a different thread than yours, and maybe you cannot even see them

emilylau.bsky.social•98 days ago

Oh wow I am awful at threads at blue sky and didn’t even see Steve’s messages!! Sorry to repeat

ostratodd.bsky.social•98 days ago

Yeah, I don't understand something about the threads either

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