Journal
BEHAVIOUR
Volume 155, Issue 6, Pages 505-529Publisher
BRILL
DOI: 10.1163/1568539X-00003501
Keywords
dietary cues; chemical ecology; predator-prey; naive prey
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Funding
- University of Michigan Biological Station through the Marian P. and David M. Gates Graduate Student Endowment Fund
- Bowling Green State University Faculty Research Committee
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Aquatic prey often alter their morphology, physiology, and/or behaviour when presented with predatory chemical cues which are heavily influenced by the diet of the predator. We tested the roles that diet and prey familiarity with predators play in the ability of prey to recognize predator threats. Odours from two fish, bass and cichlid fed a vegetarian, protein, heterospecific, and a conspecific diet, were collected and presented to virile crayfish in a choice arena. Our results show that crayfish altered their behaviour in the presence of odours containing conspecific, as opposed to heterospecific diets, but only from familiar predators. A reduced anti-predator response was measured with odours from an unfamiliar predator fed conspecific crayfish. Therefore, crayfish may be able to determine different threat levels based on the different dietary cues from a potential predator, but only when the prey have familiarity with the predators.
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