APOSEMATISM AFFECTS RANGE SIZE OF DART-POISON FROGS

Predation pressure can drive the evolution of strategies to decrease the risk of being attacked such as aposematism. Aposematism is a combination of chemical defense and warning coloration and works as a sign of prey unprofitability to predators. The rise of aposematism on different clades have been approached in numerous studies but few investigate the ecological consequences of aposematic phenotypes. Here, we investigated the impact of aposematic phenotypes on species geographic range sizes. We used phylogenetic path analysis to test whether increased range sizes would be associated with higher conspicuousness in dart-poison frogs. We found that highly aposematic species have larger range sizes. Therefore, aposematic phenotypes may decrease predation pressure and allow species to move more freely throughout their habitat and expand their geographic distribution.