Affiliation:
1. aDepartment of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW 2109, Australia
2. bSchool of Life and Environmental Sciences, Sydney University, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Abstract
Abstract
Within all wild populations, individuals vary in ways that affect their vulnerability to threatening processes. Understanding that variation may clarify mechanisms of population persistence and/or evolution. In Australia, Yellow-spotted Monitors (Varanus panoptes), decline by >90% when toxic Cane Toads (Rhinella marina) invade an area. Taste-aversion training (exposing animals to non-lethal toads) can buffer impacts; but does pre-existing behavioural variation also influence survival? An individual’s fate can be predicted from its behaviour during aversion-training trials. Lizards presented with small toads either consumed them, rejected them, or fled. When Cane Toads invaded our study site, mortality was lower in lizards that ‘consumed’ (aversion-trained) than in those that ‘fled’ (untrained), but even lower in lizards that ‘rejected’ toads outright. Thus, animals reluctant to consume toads in trials survived despite never being aversion-trained. In this system, lizard vulnerability is driven by boldness, behavioural responses to novel prey types, and the opportunity to learn aversion.
Subject
Behavioral Neuroscience,Animal Science and Zoology
Cited by
9 articles.
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