Startle and Habituation Responses of Blue Jays (Cyanocitta Cristata) in a Laboratory Simulation of Anti-Predator Defenses of Catocala Moths (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

Ingalls, Victoria

doi:10.1163/156853993x00353

Cited by 47 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…In this study, our prey model was specifically designed for post-attack display and did not induce startling responses of birds (Ingalls, 1993;Oloffson et al, 2012; Figure 3B upper panel; the rejection rates were similar between treatments at the initial trials). However, many post-attack aposematic displays often come with sudden movements (i.e., deimatic display; which should elicit additional psychological effects on predators.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, many post-attack aposematic displays often come with sudden movements (i.e., deimatic display; which should elicit additional psychological effects on predators. Based on the literatures on startle response (Ingalls, 1993;Öhman and Mineka, 2001), we anticipate that startling elements may elicit two additional psychological effects on predators during post-attack events and avoidance learning processes: (1) the startling elements may increase the initial rejection rates against naive predators and decrease the risk of initial predation when predator learning has not occurred yet, and (2) the salience of startling elements may reinforce the association between the post-attack display and unpalatability (for predators that handle the prey despite startling displays), thus promoting the rejection of prey at the post-attack stages of encounters. We encourage further experiments on the postattack display with startling elements to fully determine whether the aposematic signaling mechanism contributes to the evolution of the post-attack display in defended species.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Post-attack Aposematic Display in Prey Facilitates Predator Avoidance Learning

et al. 2016

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Warning signals protect unpalatable prey from predation because predators who learn the association between the warning signal and prey unprofitability decrease attacks on the prey. Most of the research have focused on visual aposematic signals that are constantly presented and visible to the predators. But a variety of chemically defended insects are rather cryptic when resting, and only in response to predator attacks (post-attack) they perform displays of conspicuous abdomens or hindwings normally hidden under forewings. The function of those displays in unpalatable insects is not well understood. We examined two adaptive hypotheses on this facultative aposematic display using wild-caught oriental tits (Parus minor) as predators. First, we tested whether the display increases the rejection of the prey by predators upon seeing the display (i.e., at the moment of attack) through learning trials (aposematic signaling hypothesis). Second, we tested whether the display facilitates the memory formation between cryptic visible form of the prey and prey defense so that it prevents the predators initiate an attack upon seeing the cryptic form (facilitation hypothesis). We found that predators learned to avoid attacking the prey which supports the facilitation hypothesis. However, the support for the aposematic signaling hypothesis was equivocal. Our results open new directions of research by highlighting the possibility that similar facilitation effects may contribute to the evolution of various forms of post-attack visual displays in chemically, or otherwise, defended animals.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Post-attack Aposematic Display in Prey Facilitates Predator Avoidance Learning

et al. 2016

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“…Predators may hesitate to attack prey of a novel phenotype, possibly more so if the prey is conspicuous (Coppinger 1969(Coppinger , 1970Wiklund and Järvi 1982;Ingalls 1993;Roper 1993;Marples and Brakefield 1995). This effect of novelty may provide a mechanism to allow bright prey to reach a high enough frequency for green beard selection to function as in my model.…”

Section: Implications and Effects Of Mimicry Gregariousness Noveltymentioning

confidence: 94%

The Effects of Predator Learning, Forgetting, and Recognition Errors on the Evolution of Warning Coloration

Servedio

2000

Evolution

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This paper demonstrates that the specifics of predator avoidance learning, information loss, and recognition errors may heavily influence the evolution of aposematism. I establish a mathematical model of the change in frequency over time of bright individuals of a distasteful prey species. Warning color spreads through green beard selection as reformulated by Guilford (1990); bright colored forms gain an advantage due to their phenotypic resemblance to other bright forms, which have been sampled by the predator. I use a general classical conditioning model to examine gradual predator learning and forgetting, and then consider the extreme of one-trial learning and no forgetting over time that may occur with very toxic prey. The advantage of conspicuous coloration under these latter conditions depends upon its role in lowering a constant probability of the prey being misidentified and thus mistakenly attacked by a predator, a rarely emphasized factor in the evolution of warning coloration. This constant probability of mistaken attacks can also be interpreted as a constant probability that forgetting has occurred (forgetting does not increase with time) or a periodic decision by the predator to resample avoided prey. I show that when predators learn and forget gradually, as under the general classical conditioning model, it is very difficult for aposematic coloration to become established unless bright individuals cross an often high threshold frequency through chance factors. In contrast, the conditions expected with highly toxic prey promote the evolution of warning coloration more easily, by means from the fixation of very bright mutations to the fixation of successive mutations each of which causes a small increase in a prey's conspicuousness. The results therefore predict that aposematic coloration may have evolved in a different manner in different predator and prey systems. They also suggest that it may be extremely difficult for warning coloration to evolve in more mildly toxic or distasteful prey outside of a mimicry system.

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“…We suggest that the bats require longer to habituate to B. trigona clicks because of their jamming effect. This is akin to the situation for Catocala moths flashing their colorful hind wings to blue jays; predators take longer to habituate to more conspicuous startle signals (Ingalls, 1993).…”

Section: Bats Habituate Slowly To Jamming Signalsmentioning

confidence: 95%

How do tiger moths jam bat sonar?

Corcoran

Barber

Hristov

et al. 2011

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARYThe tiger moth Bertholdia trigona is the only animal in nature known to defend itself by jamming the sonar of its predators -bats. In this study we analyzed the three-dimensional flight paths and echolocation behavior of big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) attacking B. trigona in a flight room over seven consecutive nights to determine the acoustic mechanism of the sonar-jamming defense. Three mechanisms have been proposed: (1) the phantom echo hypothesis, which states that bats misinterpret moth clicks as echoes; (2) the ranging interference hypothesis, which states that moth clicks degrade the bats' precision in determining target distance; and (3) the masking hypothesis, which states that moth clicks mask the moth echoes entirely, making the moth temporarily invisible. On nights one and two of the experiment, the bats appeared startled by the clicks; however, on nights three through seven, the bats frequently missed their prey by a distance predicted by the ranging interference hypothesis (~15-20cm). Three-dimensional simulations show that bats did not avoid phantom targets, and the bats' ability to track clicking prey contradicts the predictions of the masking hypothesis. The moth clicks also forced the bats to reverse their stereotyped pattern of echolocation emissions during attack, even while bats continued pursuit of the moths. This likely further hinders the bats' ability to track prey. These results have implications for the evolution of sonar jamming in tiger moths, and we suggest evolutionary pathways by which sonar jamming may have evolved from other tiger moth defense mechanisms. Supplementary material available online at

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Startle and Habituation Responses of Blue Jays (Cyanocitta Cristata) in a Laboratory Simulation of Anti-Predator Defenses of Catocala Moths (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

Cited by 47 publications

References 29 publications

Post-attack Aposematic Display in Prey Facilitates Predator Avoidance Learning

Post-attack Aposematic Display in Prey Facilitates Predator Avoidance Learning

The Effects of Predator Learning, Forgetting, and Recognition Errors on the Evolution of Warning Coloration

How do tiger moths jam bat sonar?

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