Data to accompany: Rapid body color change provides lizards with facultative crypsis in the eyes of their avian predators

Color change serves many antipredator functions and may allow animals to better match environments or disrupt outlines to prevent detection. Rapid color change could potentially provide camouflage to animals that frequently move among microhabitats. Determining the adaptiveness of whole-animal rapid color changes in natural habitats with respect to predator visual systems would greatly broaden our fundamental understanding of the evolution of rapid color change. We tested whether whole-body color change provides water anoles (Anolis aquaticus) with camouflage against avian predators, and whether these rapid changes allow them to shift between environment matching and edge disruption. We manipulated A. aquaticus placement in natural microhabitats and used digital image analysis to quantify color matching, pattern matching, and edge disruption produced by microhabitat-induced color change. Color change reduced lizard detectability to predators in microhabitat-specific ways. Environment ma...体色变化具备多种反捕食功能，可帮助动物更好地适配栖息环境，或是通过破坏自身轮廓以避免被天敌侦测。快速体色变化或能为频繁在微生境间移动的动物提供伪装。若能结合捕食者的视觉系统，探究自然生境中完整动物个体的快速体色变化的适应性，将极大拓展我们对快速体色变化演化机制的基础认知。我们开展了两项验证实验：其一，全身体色变化是否能为水安乐蜥（Anolis aquaticus）提供针对鸟类捕食者的伪装；其二，这类快速体色变化是否能帮助它们在环境匹配与轮廓破坏两种伪装策略间实现切换。我们操控了水安乐蜥在自然微生境中的放置位置，并通过数字图像分析量化了微生境诱导的体色变化所产生的体色匹配度、图案匹配度以及轮廓破坏效果。体色变化会以微生境特异性的方式降低蜥蜴被捕食者发现的概率。环境适配...