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Coral degradation alters predator odour signatures and influences prey learning and survival.

ABSTRACT: Habitat degradation is a key factor leading to the global loss of biodiversity. This problem is particularly acute in coral reef ecosystems. We investigated whether recognition of predator odours by damselfish was influenced by coral degradation and whether these changes altered survival in the wild. We taught whitespot damselfish to recognize the odour of a predator in the presence of live/healthy coral or dead/degraded coral. Fish were tested for a response to predator odours in environments that matched their conditioning environment or in environments that were mismatched. Next, we taught blue damselfish to recognize the odour of three common reef predators in live and degraded coral environments and then stocked them onto live or degraded patch reefs, where we monitored their subsequent response to predator odour along with their survival. Damselfish learned to recognize predator odours in both coral environments, but the intensity of their antipredator response was much greater when the conditioning and test environments matched. Fish released on degraded coral had about 50% higher survival if they had been trained in the presence of degraded coral rather than live coral. Altering the intensity of antipredator responses could have rather profound consequences on population growth.

SUBMITTER: Chivers DP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6545084 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Coral degradation alters predator odour signatures and influences prey learning and survival.

Chivers D P DP McCormick M I MI Fakan E P EP Barry R P RP Edmiston J W JW Ferrari M C O MCO

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20190529 1903

Habitat degradation is a key factor leading to the global loss of biodiversity. This problem is particularly acute in coral reef ecosystems. We investigated whether recognition of predator odours by damselfish was influenced by coral degradation and whether these changes altered survival in the wild. We taught whitespot damselfish to recognize the odour of a predator in the presence of live/healthy coral or dead/degraded coral. Fish were tested for a response to predator odours in environments t ...[more]

PMID: 31138070

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Project description:Predation risk is a strong driver of prey distribution and movement. However, fitness-influencing behaviours, such as mating, can alter risk and influence predator-prey space-use dynamics. In tree crickets, Oecanthus henryi, mate searching involves acoustic signalling by immobile males and phonotactic movement by females. Space-use patterns in tree crickets relative to their primary predators, green lynx spiders (Peucetia viridans), should therefore depend on their current mate-searching state; whether males are calling or non-calling and whether females are phonotactic or non-phonotactic. We first measured the degree of spatial anchoring of crickets to specific bushes in the field and determined whether that influenced the probability of broad-scale spatial overlap with spiders. In the absence of spiders, all crickets, independent of sex or male calling status, were found to be spatially anchored to specific types of bushes and not uniformly distributed on the landscape. At the broad spatial scale, spiders were more likely to be found on bushes with female crickets and, to a lesser degree, calling male crickets. At a finer spatial scale within a bush, movement strategies of crickets not only varied depending on the presence or absence of a spider, but also on their current mate-searching state. Phonotactic females showed clear predator avoidance, whereas calling and non-calling males moved towards the spider instead of away, similar to predator inspection behaviour seen in many taxa. As the strongly selected sex, males are more likely to undertake risky mate-searching activities, which includes inspection of predator positions. Overall, we found that all crickets were predictably anchored at the landscape scale, but their sex and mate-seeking behaviour influenced the degree of overlap with predators and their antipredator movement strategies. Reproductive strategies within a prey species, therefore, can alter predator-prey space race at multiple spatial scales.

Project description:To make adaptive foraging decisions, predators need to gather information about the profitability of prey. As well as learning from prey encounters, recent studies show that predators can learn about prey defences by observing the negative foraging experiences of conspecifics. However, predator communities are complex. While observing heterospecifics may increase learning opportunities, we know little about how social information use varies across predator species. Social transmission of avoidance among predators also has potential consequences for defended prey. Conspicuous aposematic prey are assumed to be an easy target for naïve predators, but this cost may be reduced if multiple predators learn by observing single predation events. Heterospecific information use by predators might further benefit aposematic prey, but this remains untested. Here we test conspecific and heterospecific information use across a predator community with wild-caught blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) and great tits (Parus major). We used video playback to manipulate social information about novel aposematic prey and then compared birds' foraging choices in 'a small-scale novel world' that contained novel palatable and aposematic prey items. We expected that blue tits would be less likely to use social information compared to great tits. However, we found that both blue tits and great tits consumed fewer aposematic prey after observing a negative foraging experience of a demonstrator. In fact, this effect was stronger in blue tits compared to great tits. Interestingly, blue tits also learned more efficiently from watching conspecifics, whereas great tits learned similarly regardless of the demonstrator species. Together, our results indicate that social transmission about novel aposematic prey occurs in multiple predator species and across species boundaries. This supports the idea that social interactions among predators can reduce attacks on aposematic prey and therefore influence selection for prey defences.

Dataset Information

Coral degradation alters predator odour signatures and influences prey learning and survival.

Publications

Coral degradation alters predator odour signatures and influences prey learning and survival.

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