Spatio-temporal colour variation of arthropods and their environment

Studies on animal camouflage offer some of the most compelling examples of microevolution via natural selection. If selection favouring camouflage is indeed widespread, the colour of the vegetation might act as a filter by removing non-camouflaged species. Consequently, the colouration and diversity of colours of animal communities may follow similar patterns to those of the vegetation. During wet and dry periods of the year, we extracted physical descriptors of chromatic and achromatic dimensions of arthropods and vegetation items collected from neighbouring vegetational types: a seasonal savanna (cerrado) and an evergreen gallery forest. Here, colouration can be understood as a trait, and we seek to describe and comprehend patterns at the community-level. The colours of the arthropods in the gallery forest were similar to the vegetation and followed the relatively small changes in this vegetational type. This could indicate the potential for the studied animals to be, overall, camouflaged against the vegetation. Conversely, the cerrado vegetation during the dry season was dominated by dry grasses and a homogeneous beige tint. After the dry season, the vegetation shifted to a bimodal distribution, dominated by the green of new leaves. The diversity of arthropod colours changed, to some extent, in concert with the vegetation. However, the peak location of arthropod colouration did not follow the vegetation. The Cerrado colour variation could act as one of the filters in these arthropod communities.