Addressing prey naivety in native mammals by accelerating selection for antipredator traits.

Autor: Moseby K; School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.; Arid Recovery, Roxby Downs, South Australia, Australia., Van der Weyde L; School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia., Letnic M; School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia., Blumstein DT; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA., West R; School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia., Bannister H; School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America [Ecol Appl] 2023 Mar; Vol. 33 (2), pp. e2780. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Jan 04.
DOI: 10.1002/eap.2780
Abstrakt: Harnessing natural selection to improve conservation outcomes is a recent concept in ecology and evolutionary biology and a potentially powerful tool in species conservation. One possible application is the use of natural selection to improve antipredator responses of mammal species that are threatened by predation from novel predators. We investigated whether long-term exposure of an evolutionary naïve prey species to a novel predator would lead to phenotypic changes in a suite of physical and behavioral traits. We exposed a founder population of 353 burrowing bettongs (Bettongia lesueur) to feral cats (Felis catus) over 5 years and compared the physical and behavioral traits of this population (including offspring) to a control (non-predator exposed) population. We used selection analysis to investigate whether changes in the traits of bettongs were likely due to phenotypic plasticity or natural selection. We also quantified selection in both populations before and during major population crashes caused by drought (control) and high predation pressure (predator-exposed). Results showed that predator-exposed bettongs had longer flight initiation distances, larger hind feet, and larger heads than control bettongs. Trait divergence began soon after exposure and continued to intensify over time for flight initiation distance and hind foot length relative to control bettongs. Selection analysis found indicators of selection for larger hind feet and longer head length in predator-exposed populations. Results of a common garden experiment showed that the progeny of predator-exposed bettongs had larger feet than control bettongs. Results suggest that long-term, low-level exposure of naïve prey to novel predators can drive phenotypic changes that may assist with future conservation efforts.
(© 2022 The Authors. Ecological Applications published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Ecological Society of America.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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