Experiments with live blue jays and virtual moths on a computer screen
have shown researchers how moths evolve patterns of camouflage on their
wings.
Alan Bond and Alan Kamil, both of the University of
Nebraska in Lincoln, trained blue jays to "hunt" and peck at virtual
moths on a computer screen. If the birds found a moth, they were
rewarded with a food pellet. If they were unable to find a moth, they
were trained to peck at a green dot that would initiate a new trial.
In about half of the trials, a moth was randomly inserted into the displays. The background of the displays looked like TV static or "cold gray oatmeal," while the digital moths were tiny images in black, white, and gray, Bond explained.
It has been hypothesized since the 1950s that moths with more common wing patterns and coloring will be recognized and preyed on more frequently. This gives moths with rarer wing patterns a survival advantage so they can breed and increase their numbers.
After many generations, however, the situation will flip. Moths with the more common wing pattern become rarer as blue jays single them out for prey; moths with rarer patterns become dominant and thus the new prey of choice.
This idea had never been fully tested until Bond and Kamil set out to study the evolutionary consequences of the blue jays' hunting strategy on a population of 200 virtual moths.
Virtual Breeding
Every day, each of four blue jays examined more than 400 screens searching for moths. When a moth was found and pecked by a blue jay, it was eliminated from the lineup—equivalent to the loss of that moth and its ability to breed and contribute to the gene pool.
When all the blue jays had completed their trials for the day, the results were entered into an algorithm that "bred" the surviving moths and generated a new population of 200 moths with the slightly different wing patterns that had evolved. This new population was then shown to the four blue jays the next day.
After 100 generations, the virtual moths had evolved a diverse array of wing patterns. The designs blended more into the background, just as a moth on tree bark is often hard to detect.
"A broad range of wing patterns developed, but the patterns also evolved to become more cryptic so that the moths were more difficult to find," said Bond, co-author of a report on the study published February 7 in the journal Nature.
The diversity in the range of wing patterns almost doubled and the designs became about 30 percent more cryptic, said Bond.
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