Predation risk shapes the use of conflicting personal risk and social safety information in guppies

Abstract

When faced with uncertainty, animals can benefit from using multiple sources of information in order to make an optimal decision. However, information sources (e.g., social and personal cues) may conflict, while also varying in acquisition cost and reliability. Here, we assessed behavioral decisions of Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata), in situ, when presented with conflicting social and personal information about predation risk. We positioned foraging arenas within high- and low-predation streams, where guppies were exposed to a personal cue in the form of conspecific alarm cues (a known indicator of risk), a novel cue, or a control. At the same time, a conspecific shoal (a social safety cue) was either present or absent. When social safety was absent, guppies in both populations showed typical avoidance responses towards alarm cues, and high-predation guppies showed their typical avoidance of novel cues (i.e., neophobia). However, the presence of social safety cues was persuasive, overriding the neophobia of high-predation guppies and emboldening low-predation guppies to ignore alarm cues. Our experiment is one of the first to empirically assess the use of safety and risk cues in prey and suggests a threshold level of ambient risk which dictates the use of conflicting social and personal information.

Microhabitat conditions drive uncertainty of risk and shape neophobic responses in Trinidadian guppies, Poecilia reticulata

“…Both these populations experience elevated risk and therefore should exhibit neophobic behaviour (Brown et al, 2013). Indeed, neophobia in guppies originating from this site at the Lopinot has been well documented (Feyten et al, 2021;, and we expected this to be the case for the Acono population as well. We sampled 27 discrete pools (average length = 7.74 m, length range = 2.36-17.18 m) within the Lopinot River, and 15 discrete pools (average length = 7.14 m, length range = 3.93-14.34 m) in the Acono River.…”

“…Meanwhile, latencies to forage are widely documented and reviewed in the neophobic literature as risk-averse behaviour Crane & Ferrari, 2017;Greenberg & Mettke-Hofmann, 2001;Mettke-Hofmann et al, 2013). More specifically, our two behavioural assays were based on recent in situ experiments testing neophobia and perceived predation risk (Brown et al, 2013;Elvidge et al, 2016;Feyten et al, 2021;.…”

Uncertainty about predation risk: a conceptual review

“…Hence, prey encountering novel cues should seek simultaneously available known cues (e.g. social cues) to reduce their uncertainty (Kendal et al ., 2005; Feyten et al ., 2021). Another coping mechanism would be for decision‐makers to use the consistency/inconsistency of previously encountered novel cues in estimating the probability of risk.…”

“…Instead, in relatively high‐risk environments, prey presumably experience many novel cues in both risky and safe contexts (e.g. a diversity of novel predators and non‐predators), and thus novel cues will not correlate consistently with risk (high uncertainty) (Feyten et al ., 2021, 2022; Deacon, Jones & Magurran, 2018). To illustrate this point, consider a low‐risk environment where 99% of novel cues encountered in the past were safe (i.e.…”

“…Social cues can thus be persuasive in conveying both risk and safety. In another study, wild guppies from both high‐ and low‐predation environments were exposed simultaneously to personal risk cues and social safety cues (Feyten et al ., 2021). When the social safety cues were present, high‐predation guppies were no longer neophobic, and low‐predation guppies no longer responded to alarm cues.…”