Many to one mapping in Mantodea: The role of phylogeny, mimicry, and behavior in prey capture diversity

The evolution of camouflage has led to many examples of organisms mimicking their environment to remain undetected or unseen. Camouflage results from strong selective pressures to resemble the environment as it increases Darwinian fitness in both predators and prey, having the potential to result in ecomorphs. We sought out to determine if the evolution of camouflage in ambush predators results in ecomorphs by examining the linear morphology and function of the raptorial forelegs among Mantodea (i.e., praying mantises), as the acquisition of food may vary based upon the microhabitat mimicked. More specifically, we hypothesize that the evolution of camouflage constrains a species’ diet based upon available prey in the habitat mimicked resulting in the evolution of ecomorphs for prey capture. We analyzed over 200, 3D, high-speed prey capture attempts among 10 species, 3 families and 4 camouflage strategies. Using principal component analyses to reduce dimensionality of dependent traits and phylogenetic mixed models, our results suggest that the evolution of camouflage does not result in ecomorphs based on raptorial foreleg linear morphology. We also found that camouflage had a significant effect on one kinematic axis, relatively strong phylogenetic signal for kinematics, and no effect of morphology. Lastly, we recognize two new quantitatively and qualitatively distinguishable hunting strategies in Mantodea, with kinematic and ecological implications. Our results suggest that phylogeny and camouflage affect the usage of the flexible raptorial forelegs in prey capture, which may allow mantises to diversify in their camouflage strategies to exploit different ecological niches.