Many prey species rely on publicly available personal and social information regarding local predation threats to assess risks and make contextappropriate behavioral decisions.However,in sexually dimorphic species,mal...Many prey species rely on publicly available personal and social information regarding local predation threats to assess risks and make contextappropriate behavioral decisions.However,in sexually dimorphic species,males and females are expected to differ in the perceived costs and/orbenefts associated with predator avoidance decisions.Recent studies suggest that male Trinidadian guppies(Poecilia reticulata)show reducedor absent responses to acute personal information cues,placing them at greater risk of predation relative to females.Our goal here was totest the hypothesis that adult(reproductively active)male guppies rely on social information to limit potential costs associated with their lack ofresponse to risky personal cues.Adult male guppies were exposed to personal chemosensory cues(either conspecifc alarm cues(AC),a novelodor,or a water control)in the presence of a shoal of three females inside a holding container that allowed the transmission of visual but notchemical cues.At the same time,we exposed females to either risk from AC or no risk,resulting in the display of a range of female behavior,from calm to alarmed,available as social information for males.Alarmed females caused male fright activity to increase and male interest infemales to decrease,regardless of the personal cue treatment.These results indicate that male guppies rely more on female information regarding predation risk than their own personal information,probably to balance trade-offs between reproduction and predator avoidance.展开更多
Predation is a pervasive selection pressure,shaping morphological,physiological,and behavioral phenotypes of prey species.Recent studies have begun to examine how the effects of individual experience with predation ri...Predation is a pervasive selection pressure,shaping morphological,physiological,and behavioral phenotypes of prey species.Recent studies have begun to examine how the effects of individual experience with predation risk shapes the use of publicly available risk assessment cues.Here,we investigated the effects of prior predation risk experience on disturbance cue production and use by Trinidadian guppies Poecilia reticulata under laboratory conditions.In our first experiment,we demonstrate that the response of guppies from a high predation population(Lopinot River)was dependent upon the source of disturbance cue senders(high vs.low predation populations).However,guppies collected from a low predation site(Upper Aripo River)exhibited similar responses to disturbance cues,regardless of the sender population.In our second experiment,we used laboratory strain guppies exposed to high versus low background risk conditions.Our results show an analogous response patterns as shown for our first experiment.Guppies exposed to high background risk conditions exhibited stronger responses to the disturbance cues collected from senders exposed to high(vs.low)risk conditions and guppies exposed to low risk conditions were not influenced by sender experience.Combined,our results suggest that experience with background predation risk significantly impacts both the production of and response to disturbance cues in guppies.展开更多
基金supported by Concordia University and funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada(Discovery Grant to G.E.B.,and an E.W.R.SteacieMemorial Fellowship to M.C.O.F.).
文摘Many prey species rely on publicly available personal and social information regarding local predation threats to assess risks and make contextappropriate behavioral decisions.However,in sexually dimorphic species,males and females are expected to differ in the perceived costs and/orbenefts associated with predator avoidance decisions.Recent studies suggest that male Trinidadian guppies(Poecilia reticulata)show reducedor absent responses to acute personal information cues,placing them at greater risk of predation relative to females.Our goal here was totest the hypothesis that adult(reproductively active)male guppies rely on social information to limit potential costs associated with their lack ofresponse to risky personal cues.Adult male guppies were exposed to personal chemosensory cues(either conspecifc alarm cues(AC),a novelodor,or a water control)in the presence of a shoal of three females inside a holding container that allowed the transmission of visual but notchemical cues.At the same time,we exposed females to either risk from AC or no risk,resulting in the display of a range of female behavior,from calm to alarmed,available as social information for males.Alarmed females caused male fright activity to increase and male interest infemales to decrease,regardless of the personal cue treatment.These results indicate that male guppies rely more on female information regarding predation risk than their own personal information,probably to balance trade-offs between reproduction and predator avoidance.
基金Concordia University and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada to G.E.B.
文摘Predation is a pervasive selection pressure,shaping morphological,physiological,and behavioral phenotypes of prey species.Recent studies have begun to examine how the effects of individual experience with predation risk shapes the use of publicly available risk assessment cues.Here,we investigated the effects of prior predation risk experience on disturbance cue production and use by Trinidadian guppies Poecilia reticulata under laboratory conditions.In our first experiment,we demonstrate that the response of guppies from a high predation population(Lopinot River)was dependent upon the source of disturbance cue senders(high vs.low predation populations).However,guppies collected from a low predation site(Upper Aripo River)exhibited similar responses to disturbance cues,regardless of the sender population.In our second experiment,we used laboratory strain guppies exposed to high versus low background risk conditions.Our results show an analogous response patterns as shown for our first experiment.Guppies exposed to high background risk conditions exhibited stronger responses to the disturbance cues collected from senders exposed to high(vs.low)risk conditions and guppies exposed to low risk conditions were not influenced by sender experience.Combined,our results suggest that experience with background predation risk significantly impacts both the production of and response to disturbance cues in guppies.
