Affiliation:
1. School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS9 3PH, UK
Abstract
Due to climate change, freshwater habitats are facing increasing temperatures and more extreme weather that disrupts water flow. Together with eutrophication and sedimentation from farming, quarrying and urbanization, freshwaters are becoming more turbid as well as warmer. Predators and prey need to be able to respond to one another adaptively, yet how changes in temperature and turbidity interact to affect predator–prey behaviour remains unexplored. Using a fully factorial design, we tested the combined effects of increased temperature and turbidity on the behaviour of guppy shoals (
Poecilia reticulata
) in the presence of one of their natural cichlid predators, the blue acara (
Andinoacara pulcher
). Our results demonstrate that the prey and predator were in closest proximity in warmer, turbid water, with an interaction between these stressors showing a greater than additive effect. There was also an interaction between the stressors in the inter-individual distances between the prey, where shoal cohesion increased with temperature in clear water, but decreased when temperature increased in turbid water. The closer proximity to predators and reduction in shoaling in turbid, warmer water may increase the risk of predation for the guppy, suggesting that the combined effects of elevated temperature and turbidity may favour predators rather than prey.
Funder
Natural Environment Research Council
Subject
General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Environmental Science,General Immunology and Microbiology,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine
Cited by
2 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献