When the Ghost of Predation has Passed: Do Rodents from Islands with and without Fox Predators Exhibit Aversion to Fox Cues?

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In this Subject: Animal Culture ,&nbsp; Zoology ,&nbsp; Psychology
By this author: Orrock, John L.

Author: Orrock, John L.

Source: Ethology, Volume 116, Number 4, April 2010 , pp. 338-345(8)

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Abstract:

Anti-predator behavior can alter the dynamics of prey populations, but little is known about the rate at which anti-predator behavior is lost from prey populations following predator removal. The Channel Islands differ in whether they have historically contained a top predator, the Island Fox (Urocyon littoralis), in evolutionary time (approximately 6200-10 000 yr). On a historically fox-containing island and two historically fox-free islands in 2007, I deployed live traps that contained olfactory cues of fox predators (fox feces), olfactory cues of an herbivore (horse feces) or a no-feces control. Due to a captive breeding program, foxes on the historically fox-containing island were effectively removed from 1998 to 2004. Rodents from one of the historically fox-free islands did not respond to fox cues, whereas rodents on the historically fox-containing island were more likely to be captured in a control trap and less likely to be captured in a fox-cue trap. Results from the other historically fox-free island that experienced a recent population bottleneck and period of captive rearing exhibited a preference for horse-scented traps. These results suggest that, on islands where foxes are the primary predators, anti-predator behavior in response to olfactory cues is not likely to be rapidly lost by short-term removals of foxes, although the nature of anti-predator behavior may depend upon founder events and recent population dynamics (e.g. population bottlenecks or several generations in captivity).

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0310.2010.01740.x

Publication date: 2010-04-01