Título:	Melanism and color saturation of butterfly assemblages : a comparison between a tropical rainforest and a xeric white forest
Autor(es):	Schirmer, Sofia Coradini Gawryszewski, Felipe Malheiros Cardoso, Márcio Zikán Pessoa, Daniel Marques Almeida
ORCID:	https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7200-7269 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3072-5518 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7116-8404 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2516-6766
Afiliação do autor:	Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Biosciences Center, Department of Physiology and Behavior, Laboratory of Sensory Ecology University of Brasilia, Institute of Biological Sciences, Department of Zoology, Evolutionary Ecology Laboratory University of Brasilia, Institute of Biological Sciences, Department of Zoology, Evolutionary Ecology Laboratory Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Institute of Biology, Department of Ecology, Insect Ecology Laboratory Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Biosciences Center, Department of Physiology and Behavior, Laboratory of Sensory Ecology
Assunto:	Seleção sexual Floresta Atlântica Borboletas Camuflagem (Biologia) Cor dos animais
Data de publicação:	16-Fev-2023
Editora:	Frontiers
Referência:	SCHIRMER, Sofia Coradini; GAWRYSZEWSKI, Felipe Malheiros; CARDOSO, Márcio Zikán; PESSOA, Daniel Marques Almeida. Melanism and color saturation of butterfly assemblages: a comparison between a tropical rainforest and a xeric white forest. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, v. 11, e932755, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.932755. Disponível em: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ecology-and-evolution/articles/10.3389/fevo.2023.932755/full. Acesso em: 06 ago. 2025.
Abstract:	The study of butterfly coloration has helped to identify the ecological pressures involved in the evolution of animal coloration. However, almost all studies that addressed this issue have focused on species that inhabit more temperate environments, leaving the species and ecological factors of tropical regions mostly understudied. Here, our purpose was to evaluate whether butterfly assemblages from two distinct Neotropical biomes (i.e., tropical rainforest and xeric white forest) dier regarding their melanism and/or color saturation. Our hypotheses were that (1) tropical rainforest butterflies should be more melanic and color saturated, and that (2) butterflies from more open/arid tropical environments should be more melanic on their dorsal wing surfaces than on their ventral wings. Therefore, we quantified melanism and color saturation from dorsal and ventral surfaces of 121 dierent butterfly species. Comparisons show that rainforest butterflies, when contrasted to white forest butterflies, have more melanic dorsal wing surfaces, which might be seen as a form of protection against parasites. Our data also show that rainforest butterflies, but not white forest species, have darker dorsal wing surfaces, when compared to their own ventral surfaces, a trend that was also found for species inhabiting both biomes, which might be associated to thermoregulatory advantages. At last, our results also point that butterflies’ dorsal wing sides present a higher variance between species (regardless of Biome), when compared to their own ventral wing side, an indication that some ecological factor (e.g., predation avoidance) might be exerting a strong homogenizing force on ventral wing coloratio
Unidade Acadêmica:	Instituto de Ciências Biológicas (IB) Departamento de Zoologia (IB ZOO)
Programa de pós-graduação:	Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia
Licença:	© 2023 Schirmer, Gawryszewski, Cardoso and Pessoa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitte
DOI:	https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.932755
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