RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Zebra diel migrations reduce encounter risk with lions over selection for safe habitats
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 165597
DO 10.1101/165597
A1 Nicolas Courbin
A1 Andrew J. Loveridge
A1 Hervé Fritz
A1 David W. Macdonald
A1 Rémi Patin
A1 Marion Valeix
A1 Simon Chamaillé-Jammes
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/07/19/165597.abstract
AB Diel migrations (DMs) undertaken by prey to avoid visual predators during the day have been demonstrated in many taxa in aquatic ecosystems. We reveal that zebras in Hwange National Park (Zimbabwe) employ a similar anti-predator strategy. Zebras forage near waterholes during the day but move away from them at sunset. We demonstrate that this DM, occurring over a few km, dramatically reduces their night-time risk of encountering lions, which generally remain close to waterholes. By contrast, zebra changes in night-time selection for vegetation types marginally reduced their risk of encountering lions. This may arise from a trade-off between encounter risk and vulnerability across vegetation types, with zebras favouring low vulnerability once DM has reduced encounter risk. In summary, here we (1) quantify the effect of a predator-induced DM in a terrestrial system on the likelihood of encountering a predator, (2) distinguish the effects of the DM from those related to day/night changes in selection for vegetation types. We discuss how revealing how prey partition their risk between predator encounter risk and habitat-driven vulnerability is likely critical to understand the emergence of anti-predator behavioural strategies.