IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/beheco/v15y2004i3p433-437.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rodent foraging is affected by indirect, but not by direct, cues of predation risk

Author

Listed:
  • John L. Orrock
  • Brent J. Danielson
  • R. Jory Brinkerhoff

Abstract

We used foraging trays to determine whether oldfield mice, Peromyscus polionotus, altered foraging in response to direct cues of predation risk (urine of native and nonnative predators) and indirect cues of predation risk (foraging microhabitat, precipitation, and moon illumination). The proportion of seeds remaining in each tray (a measure of the giving-up density [GUD]) was used to measure risk perceived by mice. Mice did not alter their GUD when presented with cues of native predators (bobcats, Lynx rufus, and red foxes, Vulpes vulpes), recently introduced predators (coyotes, Canis latrans), nonnative predators (ocelots, Leopardus pardalis), a native herbivore (white-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus), or a water control. Rather, GUD was related to microhabitat: rodents removed more seeds from foraging trays sheltered beneath vegetative cover compared with exposed trays outside of cover. Rodents also removed more seeds during nights with precipitation and when moon illumination was low. Our results suggest that P. polionotus used indirect cues rather than direct cues to assess risk of vertebrate predation. Indirect cues may be more reliable than are direct scent cues for estimating risk from multiple vertebrate predators that present the most risk in open environments. Copyright 2004.

Suggested Citation

  • John L. Orrock & Brent J. Danielson & R. Jory Brinkerhoff, 2004. "Rodent foraging is affected by indirect, but not by direct, cues of predation risk," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 15(3), pages 433-437, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:beheco:v:15:y:2004:i:3:p:433-437
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/arh031
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Savannah L Bartel & John C Kilgo, 2023. "White-tailed deer responses to acoustic predator cues are contingent upon past land use and contemporary fire regime," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 34(6), pages 1013-1022.
    2. Rachel Grant & Tim Halliday & Elizabeth Chadwick, 2013. "Amphibians’ response to the lunar synodic cycle—a review of current knowledge, recommendations, and implications for conservation," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 24(1), pages 53-62.
    3. Anu Eskelinen & Maria-Theresa Jessen & Hector A. Bahamonde & Jonathan D. Bakker & Elizabeth T. Borer & Maria C. Caldeira & W. Stanley Harpole & Meiyu Jia & Luciola S. Lannes & Carla Nogueira & Harry O, 2023. "Herbivory and nutrients shape grassland soil seed banks," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:beheco:v:15:y:2004:i:3:p:433-437. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/beheco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.