Sustained predation pressure may prevent the loss of anti-predator traits from havened populations

Conservation havens free of invasive predators are increasingly relied upon for fauna conservation, although havened populations can lose anti-predator traits, likely making them less suitable for life 'beyond the fence'. Sustaining low levels of mammalian predator pressure inside havens may prevent the loss of anti-predator traits from havened populations. We opportunistically compared behavioural and morphological anti-predator traits between four woylie (Bettongia penicillata ogilbyi) populations- one haven isolated from all mammalian predators, one haven containing a native mammalian predator (chuditch; Dasyurus geoffroii), and their respective non-havened counterparts (each containing both chuditch and invasive predators). Havened woylies existing without mammalian predators were smaller (shorter hindfeet, smaller body weight) and less reactive (consumed more food from fox-treated and control feeding stations, less agitated during human handling) than a non-havened reference population. However, in the haven containing chuditch, we found no difference in behaviour or morphology compared to the adjacent non-havened population. Across populations, anti-predator responses tended to appear stronger at sites with higher predator activity, suggestive of an adaptive response across a gradient of predation pressure. Our findings suggest that maintaining mammalian predation pressure in conservation havens could be effective for preventing or slowing the loss of anti-predator traits from these populations.

Housework or vigilance? Bilbies alter their burrowing activity under threat of predation by feral cats

Behavioral adjustments to predation risk not only impose costs on prey species themselves but can also have cascading impacts on whole ecosystems. The greater bilby (Macrotis lagotis) is an important ecosystem engineer, modifying the physical environment through their digging activity, and supporting a diverse range of sympatric species that use its burrows for refuge and food resources. The bilby has experienced a severe decline over the last 200 years, and the species is now restricted to ~20% of its former distribution. Introduced predators, such as the feral cat (Felis catus), have contributed to this decline. We used camera traps to monitor bilby burrows at four sites in Western Australia, where bilbies were exposed to varying levels of cat predation threat. We investigated the impact of feral cats on bilby behavior at burrows, particularly during highly vulnerable periods when they dig and clear away soil or debris from the burrow entrance as they perform burrow maintenance. There was little evidence that bilbies avoided burrows that were visited by a feral cat; however, bilbies reduced the time spent performing burrow maintenance in the days following a cat visit (P = 0.010). We found the risk posed to bilbies varied over time, with twice the cat activity around full moon compared with dark nights. Given bilby burrows are an important resource in Australian ecosystems, predation by feral cats and the indirect impact of cats on bilby behavior may have substantial ecosystem function implications.

Can native predators be used as a stepping stone to reduce prey naivety to novel predators?

Predator naivety negatively affects reintroduction success, and this threat is exacerbated when prey encounters predators with which they have had no evolutionary experience. While methods have been developed to inculcate fear into such predator-naïve individuals, none have been uniformly successful. Exposing ontogenetically- and evolutionary-naïve individuals first to native predators may be an effective stepping stone to improved responses to evolutionarily novel predators. We focused on greater bilbies (Macrotis lagotis) and capitalized on a multi-year mammalian recovery experiment whereby western quolls (Dasyurus geoffroii) were reintroduced into parts of a large fenced reserve that contained a population of naïve bilbies. We quantified a suite of anti-predator behaviors and measures of general wariness across quoll-exposed and quoll-naive bilby populations. We then translocated both quoll-exposed and quoll-naïve individuals into a large enclosure that contained feral cats (Felis catus) and monitored several behaviors. We found that bilbies can respond appropriately to quolls but found only limited support that experience with quolls better-prepared bilbies to respond to cats. Both populations of bilbies rapidly modified their behavior in a similar manner after their reintroduction to a novel environment. These results may have emerged due to insufficient prior exposure to quolls, inappropriate behavioral tests, or insufficient predation risk during cat exposure. Alternatively, quolls and cats are only distantly related and may not share sufficient similarities in their predatory cues or behavior to support such a learning transfer. Testing this stepping stone hypothesis with more closely related predator species and under higher predation risk would be informative.