African Wild Dogs as a Fugitive Species: Playback Experiments Investigate How Wild Dogs Respond to their Major Competitors

Abstract

It has been suggested that African wild dogs Lycaon pictus need exceptionally large home ranges (and hence occur at such low densities) because they are limited by competition with larger sympatric carnivores, namely lions Panthera leo and spotted hyenas Crocuta crocuta. To investigate this relationship at a proximate level and explore which factors mediate it, we conducted audio playback experiments examining how wild dogs responded to the simulated proximity of either lions or hyenas. The principle finding was that wild dogs consistently moved directly away from lion roars, but when played hyena whoops either stood their ground or, later, moved off in a random direction. These results suggest that lions represent an immediate high‐level threat to wild dogs that is invariably best avoided, whilst the threat from hyenas may not be so great or perhaps is simply unavoidable. Wild dogs appeared to make some assessment of ambush risk during interactions with lions, illustrated by the varying latency to their retreat in habitats of differing vegetation density (and hence ambush potential). Additionally, packs with younger pups were more likely to alarm call and exhibited a slower rate of retreat in the hour following exposure to lion roars. Other variables investigated (competitor group size, lion sex, presence of pups) failed to explain variation in wild dogs’ responses.

Space Use of African Wild Dogs in Relation to Other Large Carnivores

“…Additionally, daily activity data presented by Saleni et al [63] showed that wild dogs in HiP are primarily active during periods of low hyena activity, suggesting that wild dogs in HiP temporally avoid interacting with hyenas at this time scale. Other studies, however, have found little effect of hyenas on wild dogs [51], [64], [65]. The space use results of this study provided no evidence of wild dogs avoiding hyenas either spatially or temporally.…”

Fear of the dark or dinner by moonlight? Reduced temporal partitioning among Africa's large carnivores

“…(Laurenson et al 1995, Mills and Gorman 1997, Gorman et al 1998. Playback experiments have for example revealed short-term behavioral modifications in response to the presence of lions and hyenas such as reduced hunting activity and fleeing behavior (Durant 2000, Webster et al 2011, and simulation models revealed the sensitivity of wild dog populations to lion predation (Vucetich and Creel 1999).…”

Cheetah Reunion – The Challenge of Finding Your Friends Again

“…Attracting unwanted attention can potentially be deadly. Larger predators often kill smaller competitor species and playbacks of African wild dog vocalisation have shown that lion actively move towards their location [40], while African wild dogs move away from lion calls [41]. Considering the vulnerability of cheetah to a range of predators it is unlikely that long periods of vocalisation are used for long distance communication and the chirping sound carries far less than lion roars [21] or wolf howls [42].…”