tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571612235074696770.post8843873144674228235..comments2024-02-10T05:13:50.322-05:00Comments on Ecographica: Keep your mimics close, but your mutualists closer: Mutualism and competition among IthomiinaeUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571612235074696770.post-29855161180475863852009-01-24T15:32:00.000-05:002009-01-24T15:32:00.000-05:00George,Yes, your comments have very much clarified...George,<BR/><BR/>Yes, your comments have very much clarified my understanding of the article, mimicry complexes and habitat convergence in general. I appreciate your input and will place a little “update” at the base of the post to point others to your comment. <BR/><BR/>Thanks – going back to reread the original article now!Johnnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04947292290232739954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6571612235074696770.post-49321647471968616172009-01-24T13:20:00.000-05:002009-01-24T13:20:00.000-05:00I was interested to read your post and the origina...I was interested to read your post and the original paper (which I had not seen), not least because this study stems directly from my PhD work on microhabitat segregation and the evolution of mimicry in Neotropical Ithomiinae butterflies. My work was the first to show that ithomiine mimicry complexes (and perhaps mimicry complexes in general) are ecological guilds, the members of which share a microhabitat. I found that the species of ithomiine which belong to a particular mimicry complex fly at similar heights and I postulated (but didn't have data to prove) that they also occurred in the same type of forest (e.g. primary, secondary etc). My main novel finding was that species in a complex utilise hostplants of similar heights and that hostplant height matches the flight height of the complex. The reason I mention all of this is to point out that ithomiines are generally hostplant specialists and although members of a mimicry complex utilise hosts of similar heights etc, these hosts are nearly always different species (e.g. one complex may have hosts which are herbaceous plants, another has hosts which are trees etc). Thus members of a complex are not competing with respect to larval hostplants - and I believe it is the hostplant specificity which is driving the whole system via microhabitat-specific predators i.e. probably insectivorous birds. Note that ithomiines have complex pheromone bouquets, so identifying mates is probably not a problem. Also that males obtain the pyrrolizidine alkaloids they need in clearings and secondary forest where most of the PA plants grow. However, the point is that they spend most of their time in the microhabitats where the females are searching for hostplants. I hope this helps to clarify the matter!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com