Authors: Maud C O Ferrari Douglas P Chivers
Publish Date: 2013/02/07
Volume: 16, Issue: 4, Pages: 667-676
Abstract
Due to the high variability in predation risk through space and time prey have to continuously update information about the risk level posed by predators Despite numerous studies focusing on temporal risk assessment we know very little about how individuals deal with information regarding changes in risk level of a given predator through time In this study we conditioned tadpoles to recognize a predator as a high or low risk twice 2 weeks apart in a 2 × 2 design We tested the responses of the tadpoles 1 and 11 days after each conditioning event Prey showed responses to the predator 1 day after the first conditioning but the lowrisk group failed to respond to the predator after 11 days However we found that information learned during the first conditioning affected the response to the predator after the second conditioning indicating that prey do not ‘forget’ old information but simply ignore it Moreover tadpoles were able to assess their change in vulnerability over the 2week period and further extrapolate the risk level of the predator through time to display adaptive threatsensitive antipredator responses Our study highlights the complex decisionmaking that prey use to assess temporal fluctuation in predation riskAll work reported herein was performed in accordance with the UCACS Animal Care Protocol 20060014 Funding was provided by NSERC of Canada to DPC and MCOF A big thanks to Jean and Glen for letting us play in the ponds to Jana Vrtelova for field assistance and Oliver and Harold for their invaluable moral support during our neverending observations in mosquitoinfected field sites
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