[en] Organisms can gain information about predation risks from their parents, their own personal experience, and their conspecifics and adjust their behavior to alleviate these risks. These different sources of information can, however, provide conflicting information due to spatial and temporal variation of the environment. This raises the question of how these cues are integrated to produce adaptive antipredator behavior. We investigated how common lizards (Zootoca vivipara) adjust the use of conspecific cues about predation risk depending on whether the information is maternally or personally acquired. We experimentally manipulated the presence of predator scent in gestating mothers and their offspring in a full-crossed design. We then tested the consequences for social information use by monitoring offspring social response to conspecifics previously exposed to predator cues or not. Lizards were more attracted to the scent of conspecifics having experienced predation cues when they had themselves no personal information about predation risk. In contrast, they were more repulsed by conspecific scent when they had personally obtained information about predation risk. However, the addition of maternal information about predation risk canceled out this interactive effect between personal and social information: lizards were slightly more attracted to conspecific scent when these two sources of information about predation risk were in agreement. A chemical analysis of lizard scent revealed that exposure to predator cues modified the chemical composition of lizard scents, a change that might underlie lizards’ use of social information. Our results highlight the importance of considering multiple sources of information while studying antipredator defenses.
Disciplines :
Environmental sciences & ecology
Author, co-author :
Winandy, Laurane ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Biologie, Ecologie et Evolution > Laboratoire d'Écologie et de Conservation des Amphibiens
Di Gesu, Lucie
Lemoine, Marion
Jacob, Staffan
Martin, José
Ducamp, Christine
Huet, Michèle
Legrand, Delphine
Cote, Julien
Language :
English
Title :
Maternal and personal information mediates the use of social cues about predation risk
Publication date :
08 March 2021
Journal title :
Behavioral Ecology
ISSN :
1045-2249
eISSN :
1465-7279
Publisher :
Oxford University Press, United Kingdom
Volume :
32
Issue :
3
Pages :
518-528
Peer reviewed :
Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi
Funders :
ANR - Agence Nationale de la Recherche [FR] Fondation Fyssen [FR]
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