Response of Gray-Tailed Voles to Odours of a Mustelid Predator: A Field Test

Wolff, Jerry O.; Davis-Born, Renee

doi:10.2307/3546898

Cited by 61 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(24 reference statements)

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“…These same kin clusters form at high densities when a social fence of territorial neighbors deters emigration (Wolff 1997, Wolff & Sherman 2007. Cooperative breeding and communal nesting of female relatives occur under these circumstances and result in continued reproduction and juvenile recruitment even at the highest densities, although recruitment is strongly inversely density-dependent (Wolff & Sherman 2007;Wolff 2003a).…”

Section: Mating Systems Results From Mating Tactics Femalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The main threat to these vulnerable young appears to be conspecific males and females that can benefit from killing unrelated offspring. Mating and sexual tactics of males and females are a consequence of this vulnerability of young to the threat of infanticide (Wolff 1997).…”

Section: Mating Systems Results From Mating Tactics Femalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Dispersal can slow the rate of population growth, especially in patchy environments, but in large homogeneous habitats dispersal appears to be delayed by a social fence of territorial neighbors, which deter immigration and movements across territorial boundaries (Wolff 1997(Wolff , 2003a. This delayed emigration results in extended families and cooperative and communal nesting at high densities as described above.…”

Section: Social Biology Of Hormones Reproductive Effort and The Stresmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social biology of rodents

Wolff

2007

Integrative Zoology

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Herein, I summarize some basic components of rodent social biology. The material in this paper is summarized and condensed from a recent book "Rodent Societies: An Ecological and Evolutionary Perspective" edited by J. O. Wolff and P. W. Sherman (2007). I describe the four basic spacing patterns and illustrate how female territoriality is a function of offspring defense and male mating tactics are a function of female defensibility. The vulnerability of young to infanticide shapes female spacing and mating behavior. Food does not appear to be a defensible resource for rodents, except for those species that larder hoard nonperishable items such as seeds. Philopatry and the formation of kin groups result in genetic sub-structuring of the population, which in turn affects effective population size and genetic diversity. Dispersal is male biased and typically involves emigration from the maternal site to avoid female relatives and to seek unrelated mates. Scent marking is a major form of communication and is used in reproductive competition and to assess prospective mates, but it is also eavesdropped by predators to locate prey. Females do not appear to alter the sex ratio of litters in response to maternal condition but among arvicoline rodents daughters appear to be favored in spring and sons in autumn. Rodents are relatively monomorphic; however, females tend to be larger than males in the smallest species and smaller in the larger species. Predation risk results from an interaction among foraging time and vulnerability and in turn affects behavioral and life history characteristics.

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Section: Mating Systems Results From Mating Tactics Femalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mating Systems Results From Mating Tactics Femalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Social Biology Of Hormones Reproductive Effort and The Stresmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social biology of rodents

Wolff

2007

Integrative Zoology

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“…The first study demonstrated that gray-tailed voles, when exposed to heavily applied concentrations of urine and feces from mink, Mustela vison, did not alter their activity, reproduction, or time to sexual maturation compared with control voles exposed to urine and feces of rabbits, Oryctolagus cuniculus (Wolff and Davis-Born 1997). A subsequent field study conducted by the original research group that developed the PIBS hypothesis likewise showed that odors from weasels had no significant effect on the number of breeding females, time to sexual maturation, litter size, pup weight, or sex ratio of bank voles (Clethrionomys glareolus) in the field (Mappes et al 1998).…”

Section: Predator-induced Breeding Suppression Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory Studies with Rodents: Facts or Artifacts?

Wolff¹

2003

BioScience

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“…Many types of responses to predator scent have been investigated among prey species. Spatial avoidance and changes in foraging behaviour have been observed in rodents when a predator cue or scent is present (Wolff and Davis-Born 1997;Ylönen et al 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of naïve and experienced European rabbits to predator odour

et al. 2010

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The response of prey species to predator scent has been investigated in many mammalian species; however, there is little information about the responses of European wild rabbits at the population level. Therefore, we conducted a simple experiment to investigate the behavioural response of a rabbit population to native predator cues in the wild. We compared the response to the scent of a predator (red fox) in a wild rabbit population bred in semi-natural conditions and naïve to terrestrial predators with the response of a population in a similar environment where terrestrial predators were present. The response to predators was based on rabbit abundance, inferred from pellet counts and measured by the defecation rate per day (DRD). Our results indicate that rabbits responded to the odour of fox faeces in the treatment warrens, resulting in a lower DRD. The main anti-predator behaviour observed was spatial avoidance (warren abandonment), which seemed to be more accentuated for rabbits who had not previously had contact with foxes in the plot where terrestrial predators were excluded. In both the fenced and the unfenced plot, the differences in the effect of the predator odour between the control and treatment warrens disappeared after cessation of treatment, suggesting a flexible and adaptive behaviour of rabbits to predator cues.

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Response of Gray-Tailed Voles to Odours of a Mustelid Predator: A Field Test

Cited by 61 publications

References 25 publications

Social biology of rodents

Social biology of rodents

Laboratory Studies with Rodents: Facts or Artifacts?

Responses of naïve and experienced European rabbits to predator odour

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