Costs of vigilance in foraging ungulates

Illius, A.W.; Fitzgibbon, Clare D.

doi:10.1006/anbe.1994.1067

Cited by 180 publications

(144 citation statements)

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“…Active responses include vigilance, movement to safer habitats, and deterrence behaviors such as stotting, flight, and physical resistance. Most models of antipredator behavior (Illius andFitzGibbon 1994, Caro 2005) assume that active responses carry costs that affect survival or reproduction. These costs can be energetic (Brown et al 1999, 2010 or mediated by other physiological mechanisms such as stress responses, and empirical research often (but not always) confirms that antipredator responses carry costs (Boonstra and Singleton 1993, 2009, Rayor and Uetz 1990.…”

Section: Risk Effects and Dilution Of Direct Predation Riskmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a predictive theory of risk effects: hypotheses for prey attributes and compensatory mortality

Creel

2011

Ecology

109

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Abstract. Risk effects, or the costs of antipredator behavior, can comprise a large proportion of the total effect of predators on their prey. While empirical studies are accumulating to demonstrate the importance of risk effects, there is no general theory that predicts the relative importance of risk effects and direct predation. Working toward this general theory, it has been shown that functional traits of predators (e.g., hunting modes) help to predict the importance of risk effects for ecosystem function. Here, I note that attributes of the predator, the prey, and the environment are all important in determining the strength of antipredator responses, and I develop hypotheses for the ways that prey functional traits might influence the magnitude of risk effects. In particular, I consider the following attributes of prey: group size and dilution of direct predation risk, the degree of foraging specialization, body mass, and the degree to which direct predation is additive vs. compensatory. Strong tests of these hypotheses will require continued development of methods to identify and quantify the fitness costs of antipredator responses in wild populations.

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Section: Risk Effects and Dilution Of Direct Predation Riskmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a predictive theory of risk effects: hypotheses for prey attributes and compensatory mortality

Creel

2011

Ecology

109

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“…not conflict greatly with time allocated to vigilance (Studd et al 1983;Illius & Fitzgibbon 1994). There are, however, few empirical studies that have explicitly examined the relationship between feeding rate and predator detection rate and whether there is in fact a conflict .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Good foragers can also be good at detecting predators

Cresswell

Quinn

Whittingham

et al. 2003

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

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The degree to which foraging and vigilance are mutually exclusive is crucial to understanding the management of the predation and starvation risk trade-off in animals. We tested whether wild-caught captive chaffinches that feed at a higher rate do so at the expense of their speed in responding to a model sparrowhawk flying nearby, and whether consistently good foragers will therefore tend to respond more slowly on average. First, we confirmed that the time taken to respond to the approaching predator depended on the rate of scanning: as head-up rate increased so chaffinches responded more quickly. However, against predictions, as peck rate increased so head-up rate increased and mean length of head-up and head-down periods decreased. Head-up rate was probably dependent on peck rate because almost every time a seed was found, a bird raised its head to handle it. Therefore chaffinches with higher peck rates responded more quickly. Individual chaffinches showed consistent durations of both their head-down and head-up periods and, therefore, individuals that were good foragers were also good detectors of predators. In relation to the broad range of species that have a similar foraging mode to chaffinches, our results have two major implications for predation/starvation risk trade-offs: (i) feeding rate can determine vigilance scanning patterns; and (ii) the best foragers can also be the best at detecting predators. We discuss how our results can be explained in mechanistic terms relating to fundamental differences in how the probabilities of detecting food rather than a predator are affected by time. In addition, our results offer a plausible explanation for the widely observed effect that vigilance continues to decline with group size even when there is no further benefit to reducing vigilance.

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“…Although not mutually exclusive, an inverse relationship exists between feeding and vigilance (Lima and Dill 1990;Illius and Fitzgibbon 1994;Frid 1997). Vigilance is energetically expensive as an animal standing with its head upright cannot rest (lowest energy expenditure) or feed (energy intake) (Illius and Fitzgibbon 1994;Toïgo 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat selection and behavioural strategies of Stone's sheep in northern British Columbia.

Walker¹

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Costs of vigilance in foraging ungulates

Cited by 180 publications

References 0 publications

Toward a predictive theory of risk effects: hypotheses for prey attributes and compensatory mortality

Toward a predictive theory of risk effects: hypotheses for prey attributes and compensatory mortality

Good foragers can also be good at detecting predators

Habitat selection and behavioural strategies of Stone's sheep in northern British Columbia.

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