Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Sensory Ecology 2:
Predation and Aggression
- Find Food -
Predator-Prey
Interactions
- Visual cues can be used to detect prey
- Thee cues may be obscured by
the complex habitat
- Prey is also under selection
pressure to not be detected
- Use camoflage or crypsis
- Prey that is detected
show rapid response
times
- Predators use many
different senses to detect
prey
- Predation strategies
- Ambush Predators
- These predators will wait for mobile, abundant prey
to come into their active capture area
- E.g. spotted stargazers who hide in
burrows and use their lateral line to
detect wake of prey in water
- Criise Predation
- Predators move through
the water to capture
less abundant prey
- Prey is normally evenly distributed
throughout water column
- Saltatory Predation
- Predation where predator will move and
wait, move and wait.
- eventually prey will
move into the animals
active capture area
- Basset et al (2007) looked into
the predation strategy of
scorpionfish
- Porcelain crabs are small
and uptake water through
scathognathies
- fish have to move and wait so
as to detect crab breathing
(interference)
- Prey is not abundant so cant ambush
- Scorpionfish detect water
currents through lateral line
- Avoid Detection
- Background matching
- Hermit Crabs occupying empty
gastropod shells
- Given choice of either light or dark shells
on an either light or dark background.
- Initially crabs just pick
whatever shell is closest
regardless of background
match
- After 24 hours crabs have changed choice to
shell that matches background.
- In dark backgrounds crabs only
changed shell to match when there
was a predator cue
- Counter-shading
- Reef sharks have two
different colourations
on their bodies
- Light underneath so prey below
cannot see when they look up.
- Dark topside so that prey/predators
above cannot see from above
- Disruptive colouration
- Animals trying to break up their
colouration (stripes)
- E.g. Spotted Drumfish
- This breaks up the outline of the
animal in complex habitats
- Useful for avoiding detection
- Colour change in Cephalopods
- Cephalopods have been known to change
colour based on their background
- Carry out this process using chromatophores
- Eg Cuttlefish
- Decision making and Competition
- Briffa et al (1998) Decision to give up in
hermit crab fights.
- Successful attackers rap on shell more
vigorously than ones that give up
- When a crab is evicted the last
rapping bout will have been strongest
- If a competitor doesn't give u
shell rapping strength
decreases
- Hypoxic conditions cause
attackers to rap slower and
causes them to give up easier