Austral Ecol 26:32–46Īpfelbach R, Blanchard CD, Blanchard RJ, Hayes RA, McGregor IS (2005) The effects of predator odors in mammalian prey species: a review of field and laboratory studies. Stat Sci 7:131–153Īnderson MJ (2001) A new method for non-parametric multivariate analysis of variance. We suggest that the ecological significance of variable cue age needs more research and should be considered when interpreting behavioral responses to olfactory information.Īgresti A (1992) A survey of exact inference for contingency tables. Thus, rats used temporal variation in odor cues to evaluate the cost–benefit relationship of responding to predator and prey odors. As predicted, giving-up densities dropped once predator odor had aged, but investigation rates remained similar for aged and fresh prey odor. We tested these ideas using free-ranging rats ( Rattus spp.) in two separate experiments firstly assessing giving-up densities in the presence of predator odor, and secondly examining investigation rates of prey odors. In contrast, animals searching for food should investigate aged prey cues if investigation costs are sufficiently low and the potential benefit (a meal) sufficiently high thus, we predict that predators will maintain interest in aged prey cues. As prey cannot remain eternally risk averse in response to predator odor, we predict that antipredator responses should diminish as predator cues age. Fresh cues provide a more reliable indicator of donor presence than aged cues, but we hypothesize that the benefits of responding to aged cues depend on whether the cue indicates the proximity of a predator or a potential meal. Temporal variation in odor cues (i.e., “freshness”) seems an obvious way that animals could distinguish cues, yet there is little experimental evidence for this phenomenon. Many animals use olfaction to find food and avoid predators, and must negotiate environments containing odors of varying compositions, strengths, and ages to distinguish useful cues from background noise.
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