期刊
FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY
卷 34, 期 5, 页码 1003-1014出版社
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.13514
关键词
anti-predator behaviour; glucocorticoids; mountain goat; non-consumptive effects; predator-prey; reproductive success; risk effects; stress
类别
资金
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Fonds de Recherche du Quebec sur la Nature et les Technologies
- Alberta Fish and Wildlife Division
- Alberta Conservation Association
Non-consumptive effects of predation can strongly impact reproduction and demography of prey species. Still, the underlying mechanisms that drive non-consumptive effects are not fully understood, and the circumstances under which chronic physiological stress may mediate these effects remain unclear. Benefiting from over 23 years of environmental, physiological and demographic data, we tested the hypothesis that predation risk may impair reproduction of mountain goats through chronic elevation of physiological stress. We conducted path analyses to assess the relationships between predation risk, faecal glucocorticoid metabolites and hair cortisol concentration, and reproduction, while taking into account the potential effects of age class, sex, body mass, season and within individual variation in glucocorticoid concentration. Predation risk had a direct positive effect on the average annual faecal glucocorticoid concentration in the population, which, in turn, negatively affected the proportion of reproductive females. The same pattern was observed with hair cortisol concentration, but these results were inconclusive potentially due to methodological challenges in estimating annual average of hair cortisol at the population level. Our study presents one of the first robust evidence that stress-mediated breeding suppression can occur in a wild ungulate following increased predation risk, thereby providing a major insight on the mechanisms underlying non-consumptive effects of predation in wild mammals. A free plain language summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
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