On the landscape of fear: shelters affect foraging by dunnarts (Marsupialia, Sminthopsis spp.) in a sandridge desert environment

Disturbances such as fire reduce the structural complexity of terrestrial habitats, increasing the risk of predation for small prey species. The postfire effect of predation has especially deleterious effects in Australian habitats owing to the presence of invasive mammalian predators, the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and feral cat (Felis catus), that rapidly exploit burned habitats. Here, we investigated whether the provision of artificial shelter could alleviate the risk of predation perceived by two species of small marsupial, the dunnarts Sminthopsis hirtipes and S. youngsoni, in open postfire habitat in the sandridge system of the Simpson Desert, central Australia. We installed artificial shelters constructed from wire mesh that allowed passage of the dunnarts but not of their predators at one site, and measured and compared the perceived risk of predation by the dunnarts there with those on a control site using optimal patch-use theory (giving-up densities, GUDs). GUDs were lower near artificial shelters than away from them, and near dune crests where dunnarts typically forage, suggesting that the shelters acted as corridors for dunnarts to move up to the crests from burrows in the swales. Foraging was lower near the crest in the control plot. Two-day foraging bouts were observed in dunnart activity, with recruitment to GUD stations occurring a day earlier in the augmented shelter plot. Despite these results, the effects of the shelters were localized and not evident at the landscape scale, with GUDs reduced also in proximity to sparse natural cover in the form of regenerating spinifex grass hummocks. Mapping dunnart habitat use using the landscape of fear (LOF) framework confirmed that animals perceived safety near shelter and risk away from it. We concluded that the LOF framework can usefully assess real-time behavioral responses of animals to management interventions in situations where demographic responses take longer to occur.