title: Predator encounters have spatially extensive impacts on parental behaviour in a breeding bird community.
abstract: Predation risk has negative indirect effects on prey fitness, partly mediated through changes in behaviour. Evidence that individuals gather social information from other members of the population suggests that events in a community may impact the behaviour of distant individuals. However, spatially wide-ranging impacts on individual behaviour caused by a predator encounter elsewhere in a community have not been documented before. We investigated the effect of a predator encounter (hawk model presented at a focal nest) on the parental behaviour of pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca), both at the focal nest and at nearby nests different distances from the predator encounter. We show that nest visitation of both focal pairs and nearby pairs were affected, up to 3 h and 1 h, respectively. Parents also appeared to compensate initial disrupted feeding by later increasing nest visitation rates. This is the first evidence showing that the behaviour of nearby pairs was affected away from an immediate source of risk. Our results indicate that the impacts of short-term predator encounters may immediately extend spatially to the broader community, affecting the behaviour of distant individuals. Information about predators is probably quickly spread by cues such as intra- and heterospecific alarm calls, in communities of different taxa.
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Tartu 51014, Estonia.
authors.forename: Kadri
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Moks
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Tartu 51014, Estonia vallo.tilgar@ut.ee.
authors.forename: Vallo
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2569-0143
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Tilgar
authors.affiliation: Section of Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku 20014, Finland Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, DST-NRF Centre of Excellence, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa.
authors.forename: Robert L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Thomson
authors.affiliation: Section of Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku 20014, Finland Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, PO Box 35, Jyväskylä 40014, Finland.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Calhim
authors.affiliation: Section of Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku 20014, Finland.
authors.forename: Pauliina E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Järvistö
authors.affiliation: Zoological Institute, Biocenter Grindel, University of Hamburg, Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3, Hamburg 20146, Germany.
authors.forename: Wiebke
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Schuett
authors.affiliation: Section of Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku 20014, Finland.
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Velmala
authors.affiliation: Section of Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku 20014, Finland.
authors.forename: Toni
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Laaksonen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003463:Cues; D005387:Finland; D020387:Food Chain; D046428:Hawks / Q000502:physiology*; D009425:Nesting Behavior; D011235:Predatory Behavior; D020308:Songbirds / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Ficedula hypoleuca; community; predation risk; spatial impact