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Renda S, Périquet S, le Roux A. Blown away? Wind speed and foraging success in an acoustic predator. MAMMAL RES 2023; 68:215-221. [PMID: 36968152 PMCID: PMC10033565 DOI: 10.1007/s13364-023-00673-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2022] [Accepted: 01/12/2023] [Indexed: 02/16/2023]
Abstract
AbstractForaging animals must contend with fluctuating environmental variables that affect foraging success, including conditions like wind noise, which could diminish the usefulness of particular sensory modes. Although the documented impact of anthropogenic noise on animal behavior has become clear, there is limited research on natural noise and its potential influence on mammalian behavior. We investigated foraging behavior in the myrmecophagous bat-eared fox (Otocyon megalotis), a species known to rely predominantly on hearing for prey detection. For a year, we monitored the foraging behavior of 18 bat-eared foxes from a habituated population in South Africa, amidst varying wind speeds (0–15.5 km/h). In contrast to expectations, foraging rates did not generally decline with increasing wind speed, except for foraging rate outside termite patches in fall. Furthermore, wind speed had little correlation with time spent in patches. In winter, however, we observed an increase in foraging rate with increasing wind speed both within and outside patches. At the observed wind speeds, these acoustically driven insectivores continue to forage effectively despite potentially distracting or masking noises. With anthropogenic noise producing sound across a broader frequency range, it is important to examine the responses of these canids to artificial sources of acoustic disturbance as well.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samantha Renda
- Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of the Free State, Qwaqwa campus, Private Bag X13, Phuthaditjhaba, Free State Province 9866 South Africa
| | - Stéphanie Périquet
- Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of the Free State, Qwaqwa campus, Private Bag X13, Phuthaditjhaba, Free State Province 9866 South Africa
- Ongava Research Centre, Private Bag 12041, Suite No. 10 Ausspannplatz, Windhoek, Namibia
| | - Aliza le Roux
- Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of the Free State, Qwaqwa campus, Private Bag X13, Phuthaditjhaba, Free State Province 9866 South Africa
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2
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Of mice and cats: interspecific variation in prey responses to direct and indirect predator cues. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2023. [DOI: 10.1007/s00265-022-03277-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
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Moura CW, Clucas B, Furnas BJ. Humans Are More Influential Than Coyotes on Mammalian Mesopredator Spatiotemporal Activity Across an Urban Gradient. Front Ecol Evol 2022. [DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2022.867188] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
For mammalian mesopredators, human-dominated landscapes offer a mosaic of risk and reward. While the reward of anthropogenic food resources may attract mesopredators to human-dominated areas, increased mesopredator activity and abundance in these areas may cause interspecific conflict. For smaller-bodied mesopredators, the perceived risk of intraguild predation by larger mesopredators may be enough to drive spatial and temporal avoidance strategies to reduce risk while still benefiting from anthropogenic resources. We evaluated how the spatiotemporal activity of four non-canid mammalian mesopredators – raccoon (Procyon lotor), striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis), opossum (Didelphis virginiana), and domestic cat (Felis catus) – might change in the presence of an intraguild predator, the coyote (Canis latrans), and a “super predator,” humans. We quantified mesopredator activity by deploying camera traps at 110 sites across an urban gradient in the Sacramento Metropolitan Area in central California, USA. We hypothesized that mesopredators would likely change their spatiotemporal activity in response to urban intensity (H1), coyotes (H2), human presence (H3), and if urban intensity might mediate the response to humans and coyotes (H4). We used single-species occupancy models to test how mesopredators responded to different spatial scales of urbanization, as well as the temporal presence of coyotes and humans. Top single-species models then informed two-species conditional occupancy models to evaluate how mesopredators responded to “dominant” coyotes. Finally, we used temporal overlap analyzes to evaluate whether activity patterns of mesopredators changed in response to humans and coyotes across three levels of urban intensity. Mesopredators did not change their spatial or temporal activity across the urban gradient when coyotes were present. Additionally, coyotes did not influence mesopredator temporal activity at 1-3-day scales; however, raccoons and cats may avoid coyotes at finer scales. Humans influenced mesopredator detectability, as cats and coyotes avoided humans after 1 and 2 days respectively, and opossums avoided urban areas when humans were present within 3 days. Coyotes may play a limited role in altering smaller-bodied mesopredator activity, especially when humans are present. While the impacts of human presence and urban features are often linked, mesopredators may perceive the risk each poses differently, and adjust their activity accordingly.
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Bosse JW, Svenson GJ, Bowers TA, Bourges-Sevenier BM, Ritzmann RE. Context dependent effects on attack and defense behaviors in the praying mantis Tenodera sinensis. J Exp Biol 2022; 225:275277. [PMID: 35502775 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.243710] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/29/2021] [Accepted: 04/19/2022] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Most behavior needs to strike a balance between the competing needs to find food and protect an animal from predators. The factors that influence this balance and the resulting behavior are not well understood in many animals. Here we examined these influences in the praying mantis Tenodera sinensis (Saussure) by presenting perching individuals with alternating sinusoidally moving prey-like stimuli and rapidly expanding looming stimuli then scoring their behavior on a defensive - aggressive scale. In this way, we tested the hypothesis that such behaviors are highly context dependent. Specifically, we found that defensive responses, which are normally very consistent, are decreased in magnitude if the animal has just performed an aggressive response to the previous sinusoid. A thrash behavior not normally seen with looming alone was often seen following aggression. In thrashing the animal tries to push the looming stimulus away. It almost exclusively followed aggressive responses to the sinusoid stimulus. Moreover, aggression levels were found to shift from low to high and back to low as adult animals aged and, in general, female mantises were more aggressive than males. Finally, the specific nature of the mid-life spike in aggressive behaviors differed according to whether the animals were lab-raised or caught in the wild. Lab raised animals showed roughly equal amounts of increased attention to the stimulus and very aggressive strike behaviors whereas wild caught animals tended to either ignore the stimulus or react very aggressively with strikes. Therefore, our hypothesis regarding context dependent effects was supported with all 4 factors influencing the behaviors that were studied.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jacob W Bosse
- Department of Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA
| | - Gavin J Svenson
- Department of Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.,Department of Invertebrate Zoology, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA
| | - Troy A Bowers
- Department of Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.,Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
| | | | - Roy E Ritzmann
- Department of Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA
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Steinhoff POM, Warfen B, Voigt S, Uhl G, Dammhahn M. Individual differences in risk‐taking affect foraging across different landscapes of fear. OIKOS 2020. [DOI: 10.1111/oik.07508] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Philip O. M. Steinhoff
- Zoological Inst. and Museum, General and Systematic Zoology, Univ. of Greifswald Loitzer Straße 26 DE‐17489 Greifswald Germany
| | - Bennet Warfen
- Zoological Inst. and Museum, General and Systematic Zoology, Univ. of Greifswald Loitzer Straße 26 DE‐17489 Greifswald Germany
| | - Sissy Voigt
- Zoological Inst. and Museum, General and Systematic Zoology, Univ. of Greifswald Loitzer Straße 26 DE‐17489 Greifswald Germany
| | - Gabriele Uhl
- Zoological Inst. and Museum, General and Systematic Zoology, Univ. of Greifswald Loitzer Straße 26 DE‐17489 Greifswald Germany
| | - Melanie Dammhahn
- Animal Ecology, Inst. for Biochemistry and Biology, Univ. of Potsdam Potsdam Germany
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Jumbam KR, Périquet S, Dalerum F, le Roux A. Spatial and temporal variation in the use of supplementary food in an obligate termite specialist, the bat-eared fox. AFRICAN ZOOLOGY 2019. [DOI: 10.1080/15627020.2019.1596754] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Keafon R Jumbam
- Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of the Free State, South Africa
| | - Stéphanie Périquet
- Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of the Free State, South Africa
- Ongava Research Centre, Outjo, Namibia
| | - Fredrik Dalerum
- Research Unit of Biodiversity, University of Oviedo, Mieres, Asturias, Spain
- Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, South Africa
- Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Aliza le Roux
- Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of the Free State, South Africa
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Petelle MB, Périquet S, le Roux A. Tameness does not correlate with the learning of an appetitive association in a wild canid. Curr Zool 2019; 65:61-65. [PMID: 30697239 PMCID: PMC6347056 DOI: 10.1093/cz/zoy021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2017] [Accepted: 03/06/2018] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Individual differences in cognition have been shown to be common in some animal taxa, and recent evidence suggests that an individual's personality can be associated with an individual's cognitive strategy. We tested whether wild bat-eared foxes Otocyon megalotis differ in a risk-taking behavior (tameness) and whether this trait correlated with appetitive association learning performance. While our result shows that individuals differed in their tameness, we found no association between this personality trait and learning the appetitive association. This result does not support the framework that differences in cognition are associated with differences in personality; however, our small sample size does not allow us to assert that personality cannot be associated with cognition in this system. This study highlights that measuring cognition and personality in wild systems presents added difficulty and that correlations found in captive animals may not be evident in their wild counterparts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matthew B Petelle
- Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Free State, Qwaqwa Campus, Private Bag X13, Phuthaditjhaba, Free State, South Africa
| | - Stéphanie Périquet
- Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Free State, Qwaqwa Campus, Private Bag X13, Phuthaditjhaba, Free State, South Africa
| | - Aliza le Roux
- Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Free State, Qwaqwa Campus, Private Bag X13, Phuthaditjhaba, Free State, South Africa
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Zamora-Camacho FJ, García-Astilleros J, Aragón P. Does predation risk outweigh the costs of lost feeding opportunities or does it generate a behavioural trade-off? A case study with Iberian ribbed newt larvae. Biol J Linn Soc Lond 2018. [DOI: 10.1093/biolinnean/bly155] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Pedro Aragón
- Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC), C/José Gutiérrez Abascal, Madrid, Spain
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Welch RJ, le Roux A, Petelle MB, Périquet S. The influence of environmental and social factors on high- and low-cost vigilance in bat-eared foxes. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2018. [DOI: 10.1007/s00265-017-2433-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/05/2023]
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Périquet S, le Roux A. Seasonal patterns of habitat selection in the insectivorous bat-eared fox. Afr J Ecol 2017. [DOI: 10.1111/aje.12492] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Stéphanie Périquet
- Department of Zoology and Entomology; University of the Free State; Phuthaditjhaba South Africa
| | - Aliza le Roux
- Department of Zoology and Entomology; University of the Free State; Phuthaditjhaba South Africa
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