title: Risk-induced neophobia: does sensory modality matter?
abstract: Recent studies have documented that exposure to high levels of background risk can induce neophobic predator avoidance in prey animals, whereby they respond to any novel cue with an anti-predator response. Such phenotypically plastic predator avoidance may allow prey to maximize anti-predator benefits in variable risk environments. It remains poorly understood whether risk assessment information from different sensory modalities can be integrated to induce generalized, cross-sensory system neophobic responses. Here, we directly test this hypothesis by exposing juvenile convict cichlids (Amatitlania nigrofasciata) to high- versus low-risk environments using either conspecific alarm cue (chemosensory risk) or a model avian predator (visual/mechanical risk) and testing their response to a novel chemosensory cue (Experiment 1) or visual cue (Experiment 2). Our results suggest that regardless of the sensory modality used to increased perceived risk, cichlids pre-exposed to high-risk conditions exhibited increased predator avoidance in response to any novel visual or chemical cue. As expected, cichlids pre-exposed to low-risk conditions did not display any neophobic responses. Our results suggest that induced neophobia is not cue specific; rather, it may function as a generalized response to perceived predation risk.
authors: Department of Biology, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal, QC, H4B 1R6, Canada. grant.brown@concordia.ca.
authors: Grant E
authors: GE
authors: Brown
authors: Department of Biology, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal, QC, H4B 1R6, Canada.
authors: Christopher D
authors: CD
authors: Jackson
authors: Department of Biology, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal, QC, H4B 1R6, Canada.
authors: Brendan J
authors: BJ
authors: Joyce
authors: Department of Biology, University of Saskatchewan, 112 Science Place, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5E2, Canada.
authors: Douglas P
authors: DP
authors: Chivers
authors: Department of Biomedical Sciences, WCVM, University of Saskatchewan, 52 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5B4, Canada.
authors: Maud C O
authors: MC
authors: Ferrari
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D023681:Cichlids; D004777:Environment; D005239:Fear; D006801:Humans; D011235:Predatory Behavior; D012306:Risk
keywords: Behavioural trade-offs; Convict cichlids; Induced neophobia; Phenotypic plasticity; Predator–prey interactions; Sensory complementarity