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Dryad

Measuring the benefit of a risk-induced trait response: vigilance and survival probability

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Jul 11, 2024 version files 80.14 KB

Abstract

Defensive traits are hypothesized to benefit prey by reducing predation risk from a focal predator but come at a cost to the fitness of the prey. Variation in the expression of defensive traits is seen among individuals within the same population, and in the same individual in response to changes in the environment (i.e., phenotypically plastic responses). It is the relative magnitude of the cost and benefit of the defensive trait which underlies the defensive trait expression and its consequences to the community. However, whereas the cost has received much attention in ecological research, the benefit is seldom examined. Even in a defensive trait as extensively studied as vigilance, there are few studies of the purported benefit of the behavior, namely that vigilance enhances survival. We examined if prey vigilance increased survival and quantified that benefit in a natural system, with white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) experiencing unmanipulated levels of predation risk from Florida panther (Puma concolor coryi). Deer that spent more time vigilant (as measured by head position using camera trap data) had a higher probability of survival. Indeed, an individual deer that were vigilant 75% of the time were more than three times as likely to be killed by panthers over the course of a year compared to a deer that were vigilant 95% of the time. Our results therefore show that within-population variation in the expression of a defensive trait has profound consequences to the benefit it confers. Our results provide empirical evidence supporting a long-held but seldom tested hypothesis, that vigilance is a behavior that reduces the probability of predation and quantified the benefit of this defensive trait. Our work furthers an understanding of the net effects of a trait on prey fitness and predator-prey interactions, within-population variation in traits, and predation risk effects.