title: Harnessing natural selection to tackle the problem of prey naïveté.
abstract: Many populations are threatened or endangered because of excessive predation resulting from individuals' inability to recognize, avoid, or escape alien predators. Such prey naïveté is often attributed to the absence of prior experience and co-evolution between native prey and introduced predators. Many reintroduction programs focus on reducing predation rate by excluding introduced predators, a focus which ignores, and indeed exacerbates, the problem of prey naïveté. We argue for a new paradigm in reintroduction biology that expands the focus from predator control to kick-starting learning and evolutionary processes between alien predators and reintroduced prey. By exposing reintroduced prey to carefully controlled levels of alien predators, in situ predation could enhance reintroduction success by facilitating acquisition of learned antipredator responses and through natural selection for appropriate antipredator traits. This in situ predator exposure should be viewed as a long-term process but is likely to be the most efficient and expedient way to improve prey responses and assist in broadscale recovery of threatened species.
authors.affiliation: School of Earth and Environmental Sciences The University of Adelaide Adelaide SA Australia; Arid Recovery Ltd. Roxby Downs SA Australia.
authors.forename: Katherine E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Moseby
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of California Los Angeles CA USA.
authors.forename: Daniel T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Blumstein
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecosystem Science School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences University of New South Wales Sydney NSW Australia.
authors.forename: Mike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Letnic
keywords: exotic predators; natural selection; naïveté; predator learning; prey; reintroduction
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