Trading Heat and Food for Safety: Costs of Predator Avoidance in a Lizard

I examined the long-term consequences of a trade-off between predation risk and resource acquisition for the garden skink (Lampropholis guichenoti) by rearing hatchlings to maturity in outdoor enclosures covered with snake predator scent (mimicking high predator densities) or control scent (mimickin...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology (Durham) 2001-10, Vol.82 (10), p.2870-2881
Main Author: Downes, Sharon
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
activity patterns
Amphibia and reptilia
Animal and plant ecology
Animal behavior
Animal ethology
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Animals
Autoecology
Biological and medical sciences
chemoreception
Ecological life histories
Female animals
fitness
Foraging
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
garden skink
Lampropholis guichenoti
life history
lizard
Lizards
microhabitat use
Microhabitats
Population ecology
Predation
predation risk
predator avoidance
Predators
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Reptiles & amphibians
Reptilia. Amphibia
resource acquisition
Risk
Skinks
Snakes
trade-off
Vertebrata
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:I examined the long-term consequences of a trade-off between predation risk and resource acquisition for the garden skink (Lampropholis guichenoti) by rearing hatchlings to maturity in outdoor enclosures covered with snake predator scent (mimicking high predator densities) or control scent (mimicking low predator densities). Open areas provided optimal foraging and basking sites but were covered with scent, whereas retreat sites provided suboptimal foraging and basking opportunities and were not scented. During the initial six months of the experiment, lizards reared in enclosures covered with scent from a natural predator became active later in the day, showed reduced mobility, and selected "safer" substrate microhabitats than did lizards raised in enclosures covered with control scent. These behavioral shifts reduced opportunities to forage and bask for lizards in the predator-scented enclosures. During the study, however, lizards from predator-scented enclosures became gradually less responsive to snake chemical cues, and after one year there were no differences in the activity patterns and substrate microhabitat use of lizards in both treatments. This pattern of behavior is paralleled by variation in growth rates of lizards. Throughout the study, lizards exposed to predator scent were lighter and shorter than were lizards exposed to control scent. However, this result reflects differential rates of growth by lizards only during the first six months of the experiment. Nevertheless, lizards that grew slowly early in life, as a consequence of predator avoidance, attained smaller body sizes at maturity and produced lighter clutch masses and offspring. Thus, predator avoidance tactics employed early in a lizard's life can impose long-term fitness costs.
ISSN:0012-9658
1939-9170
DOI:10.1890/0012-9658(2001)082[2870:thaffs]2.0.co;2