Escape strategy of Schreiber’s green lizards (Lacerta schreiberi) is determined by environment but not season or sex

Abstract

Antipredator escape behaviour shows great variation with well-established sources of variation being the physical environment and the ecological context. However, the relative roles of these sources are rarely assessed together. We measured the distance that Schreiber's green lizards, Lacerta schreiberi allowed a simulated predator to approach before fleeing (flight initiation distance; FID) to know which are the main determinants of escape decisions. The environment had direct effects on the lizards' escape strategy; FID showed strong positive relationship with distance to refuge on grassy, but not on rocky substrates. Furthermore, refuge distance and the escape angle had a complex, substrateindependent, interaction effect: either short refuge distances or large escape angles resulted in short FIDs. In contrast, neither season (reproductive vs. nonreproductive), nor sex affected FID. We suggest that the escape strategy of this lizard is determined mainly by the environmental settings, irrespective of the ecological context or sexual roles.

The habitat connectivity hypothesis of escape in urban woodland birds

“…FID is also linked to post-initiation aspects of escape, such as the distance fled ( Tätte et al 2018 ). One key environmental attribute which has the potential to influence both FID and distance fled, and therefore may mediate propensity and intensity of escape, is the surrounding habitat in which an animal responds ( Kopena et al 2015 ; Hall et al 2020 ).…”

“…While many studies have examined habitat as a mediator of escape response of birds, they do so in a comparative framework using coarse-scale categorical habitat factors, applied at the level of the species (e.g., wetlands, forests, grasslands; Blumstein 2006 ; Møller and Garamszegi 2012 ; Weston et al 2021 ), or within species (e.g., urban, rural, and natural settings); the latter comparisons can confound human presence with habitat attributes ( Valcarcel and Fernández-Juricic 2009 ; Lin et al 2012 ; Weston et al 2012 ). The nature of the local habitat in which an encounter occurs can influence escape responses in birds and reptiles ( Schulte et al 2004 ; Kopena et al 2015 ; Hall et al 2020 ; Maia-Carneiro et al 2021 ). In the case of birds, no study known to us, apart from Fernández-Juricic et al (2002) and Tätte et al (2018) , quantifies (as opposed to categorizes) habitat elements associated with escape initiation or escape trajectory.…”