Antagonistic effects of predator colour morph abundance and saliency on prey anti-predator responses

The colour polymorphisms of prey species are often maintained by apostatic selection. In particular, rarer morphs are thought to be at an advantage because attentional constraints result in predators forming search images, which are based on the most abundant prey morph. Predatory species can also be polymorphic and predator morph abundance may be maintained by a similar mechanism, given prey are also likely to form search images to ensure fast and appropriate anti-predatory responses. Alternatively, given that the predator polymorphism may be driven by other ecological factors (e.g., niche divergence or sexual selection), prey may instead be highly sensitive to the relative visual saliency of different predatory morphs, which in turn could impact predator morph abundance. Here, by combining empirical observations with a field experiment, we assessed how the relative abundance and saliency of different colour morphs of the predatory trumpetfish (Aulostomus maculatus) influenced the beha..., , # Antagonistic effects of predator colour morph abundance and saliency on prey anti-predator responses

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.7pvmcvf5g](10.5061/dryad.7pvmcvf5g)

Author list: Samuel R Matchette, Jeroen Schneider, Christian Drerup, Sandra Winters, Andrew N Radford and James E Herbert-Read

### Files and variables

#### File: Data\_Abundance.txt

**Description:** Abundance of each trumpetfish colour morph. To assess the overall abundance of each trumpetfish morph, we conducted a total of 158 linear transects across nine locations on reefs surrounding Curaçao, Netherland Antilles. Transects comprised a researcher on SCUBA swimming, continuously and at a steady rate, parallel with the reef crest for 15 minutes, roughly 5 m above the reef floor, recording via camera every individual trumpetfish within ~15 m either side of the transect bearing. The researcher filmed the transect continuously using two GoPro cameras fixed to a stereo camera rig. For every trumpetfish encountered, the re...,