The benefit of being a social butterfly: Communal roosting deters predation

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Abstract

Aposematic passion-vine butterflies from the genus Heliconius formcommunal roosts on a nightly basis. This behaviour has been hypothesized to be beneficial in terms of information sharing and/or antipredator defence. To better understand the adaptive value of communal roosting, we tested these two hypotheses in field studies. The information-sharing hypothesis was addressed by examining following behaviour of butterflies departing from natural roosts. We found no evidence of roost mates following one another to resources, thus providing no support for this hypothesis. The anti-predator defence hypothesis was tested using avian-indiscriminable Heliconius erato models placed singly and in aggregations at field sites. A significantly higher number of predation attempts were observed on solitary models versus aggregations ofmodels. This relationship between aggregation size and attack rate suggests that communally roosting butterflies enjoy the benefits of both overall decreased attack frequency as well as a prey dilution effect.Communal roosts probably deter predators through collective aposematism in which aggregations of conspicuous, unpalatable prey communicate a more effective repel signal to predators.On the basis of our results,we propose that predation by birds is a key selective pressure maintaining Heliconius communal roosting behaviour. © 2012 The Royal Society.

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Finkbeiner, S. D., Briscoe, A. D., & Reed, R. D. (2012). The benefit of being a social butterfly: Communal roosting deters predation. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 279(1739), 2769–2776. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.0203

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