Refuge quality impacts the strength of nonconsumptive effects on prey

Donelan, Sarah C.; Grabowski, Jonathan H.; Trussell, Geoffrey C.

doi:10.1002/ecy.1647

Cited by 33 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…The effects of current risk on the growth efficiency of wave‐exposed snails are consistent with our previous work (Donelan et al. ), but we were surprised to find similarly strong effects for sheltered snails. As suggested above, snails from sheltered shores may be plastic in response to risk as one‐year‐olds because direct exposure to predators continues to be stressful regardless of prey's expectations for risk.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…Predation risk is known to reduce prey growth efficiency in this (Trussell et al 2006) and other (McPeek 2004) systems, likely because prey must allocate energy to support costly stress molecules and physiological pathways rather than allocating energy to growth (Pauwels et al 2005, Slos andStoks 2008). The effects of current risk on the growth efficiency of wave-exposed snails are consistent with our previous work (Donelan et al 2017), but we were surprised to find similarly strong effects for sheltered snails. As suggested above, snails from sheltered shores may be plastic in response to risk as one-year-olds because direct exposure to predators continues to be stressful regardless of prey's expectations for risk.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…Hence, half of the egg capsules from each aggregation were in the presence of embryonic risk and half were in the absence of embryonic risk. Nucella are highly responsive to green crab risk cues both with and without the presence of conspecific alarm cues (Donelan et al 2017). After one week in the presence or absence of embryonic risk, we removed each tea infuser from its risk manipulation bucket and placed it into its own plastic jar (8 9 10 cm, dia 9 h) that received risk-free flowing seawater.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effects of embryonic experience with predation risk vary across a wave exposure gradient

Donelan

Trussell

2019

Ecosphere

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Gradients in environmental stress can alter the ecological effects of predation risk to create variable landscapes of fear that shape prey antipredator responses. Prey obtain information about their risk environment not only from their immediate experiences with predators, but also from their previous experiences, especially if they occur during particularly sensitive windows in ontogeny. Embryonic development is often a key window when an individual's experiences can have lasting effects on behavior and fitness. The propensity of embryonic experiences with predation risk to affect prey performance, however, may vary across gradients of abiotic stress. Using a rocky intertidal system, we explored whether a dominant abiotic stressor—wave exposure—modifies the influence of embryonic experience with predation risk (from the green crab, Carcinus maenas) on prey (the carnivorous snail, Nucella lapillus) traits both at emergence and as one‐year‐olds exposed to current predation risk. We found that snails from wave‐exposed, but not sheltered, populations emerged smaller from development and grew less in the absence of current risk as one‐year‐olds if they experienced risk as embryos. However, exposure to current predation risk reduced the growth and growth efficiency of one‐year‐old snails from both wave‐exposed and sheltered populations. Our results demonstrate that increased environmental stress can modify predator–prey interactions and enhance prey reliance on early life experiences with predation risk, but that direct exposure to risk later in life can strongly affect prey performance across environmental stress gradients.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effects of embryonic experience with predation risk vary across a wave exposure gradient

Donelan

Trussell

2019

Ecosphere

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“…A second complementary approach is to focus on vegetation manipulations to increase available nutrition (e.g., thinning of dense forest stands). Recent work in marine systems has shown that the non-consumptive effects prey incur in seeking refuge from predators decline with the foraging resources those refuges contain (Donelan et al 2017). Together, these tools can help incentivize elk to stay on public lands by improving the quality of security areas, thus potentially increasing opportunity for hunters to pursue elk on public lands and reducing conflict between elk and private landowners.…”

Section: Management Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral changes and nutritional consequences to elk (Cervus canadensis) avoiding perceived risk from human hunters

et al. 2019

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The life‐and‐death stakes of predator–prey encounters justify the high price of many anti‐predator behaviors. In adopting these behaviors, prey incur substantial non‐consumptive costs that can have population‐level consequences. Because prey knowledge of risk is imperfect, individuals may even adopt these costly behaviors in the absence of a real threat. For example, rather than only avoid hunters, many species categorically avoid all anthropogenic activity. Although hunting seasons only increase risk for specific individuals (e.g., males), non‐target individuals may still perceive human hunters as a source of risk and respond accordingly. Here, we used a large‐scale experiment including 89 animal‐years of location data from 62 unique individuals over 6 yr to quantify the duration, magnitude, and energetic consequences of changes to movement and resource selection behavior adopted by non‐target female elk (Cervus canadensis) in response to human hunters during three separate experimental 5‐d hunts (elk archery, deer rifle (Odocoileus hemionus or Odocoileus virginianus), and elk rifle). We predicted that elk response to hunters would be brief, but that strong behavioral responses to hunters (e.g., strengthened avoidance of roads and trails) would carry nutritional costs. We measured the duration of hunt‐related changes in elk speed using quantile regression, further quantified the strength of elk behavioral responses to hunters using population‐level resource selection functions, and evaluated whether anti‐predator resource selection behavior translated to measurable metabolic costs in the form of reduced body fat heading into winter. Elk responses to human hunters were stronger in the day than at night and were generally more pronounced during the elk hunts than during deer hunts. During hunts, elk shifted their diurnal behavior to avoid forage and intensified their avoidance of roads and trails. The combination of these changes in behavior led to a predicted pattern of distribution during the hunt that differed substantially from the distribution prior to the hunt. Lactating females that more strongly avoided roads entered winter in poorer nutritional condition, suggesting that the changes in resource selection we describe carry corresponding nutritional costs that have the potential to impact subsequent population performance.

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“…Such nonconsumptive predator effects ("NCEs") on prey foraging activity may diminish competition by increasing relative resource availability and/or reducing agonistic interactions between prey individuals (Abramsky, Rosenweig, & Subach, 1998;Kohler & McPeek, 1989;Kotler & Holt, 1989;Werner & Anholt, 1996). By contrast, NCEs causing habitat shifts may enhance competition for refuge habitats and food located within or adjacent to refuges (Donelan, Grabowski, & Trussell, 2017;Moody, Houston, & McNamara, 1996;Olsson, Brown, & Helf, 2008;Orrock et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cascading effects of a top predator on intraspecific competition at intermediate and basal trophic levels

2018

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Predators can impact competition among prey by altering prey density via consumption or by causing prey to modify their traits or foraging behavior. Yet, differences between these two mechanisms may lead to different cascading impacts on lower trophic levels. Using a crab‐snail‐barnacle rocky intertidal food chain, we tested the effects of predation risk from crabs (top predators) on intraspecific competition among snails (intermediate consumers) and emergent indirect effects on the density of and competition among barnacles (basal resources). The per capita foraging and growth rates of snails declined with high conspecific density. Predation risk from crabs, which caused even larger reductions in snail foraging and growth, weakened competition among snails, whereas a 45% increase in barnacle density had no detectable effect on snail competition. Intraspecific competition between barnacles, however, depended on the interactive effects of barnacle density, snail density, and crab predation risk. Barnacles developed hummocking morphologies as they grew and competed for space. Hummock formation (a proxy for competition) increased as a result of either greater initial barnacle density or reduced snail foraging pressure, but these effects depended on predation risk. The effects of crab predation risk on snail foraging behavior weakened an otherwise strong relationship between barnacle density and hummock development: hummocking increased with barnacle density in the absence of crabs but remained relatively high when crabs were present. In communities with similar final barnacle densities, hummocking was more common in those with crabs than those without crabs. The extent to which predators can drive trophic cascades by suppressing the foraging rates of their prey is highly context‐dependent: the positive trait‐mediated indirect effect of predators on basal resource abundance is stronger when many prey respond simultaneously to the threat of predation. However, our results demonstrate that top predators can also enhance competition among basal resources even when their indirect effect on resource abundance is relatively weak. Hence, the cascading effects of predators on competition within lower trophic levels may play an important but under‐appreciated role in the dynamics of basal resource populations and the communities they support. A http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.13131/suppinfo is available for this article.

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Refuge quality impacts the strength of nonconsumptive effects on prey

Cited by 33 publications

References 70 publications

The effects of embryonic experience with predation risk vary across a wave exposure gradient

The effects of embryonic experience with predation risk vary across a wave exposure gradient

Behavioral changes and nutritional consequences to elk (Cervus canadensis) avoiding perceived risk from human hunters

Cascading effects of a top predator on intraspecific competition at intermediate and basal trophic levels

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