Seeking safety: Movement dynamics after post-contact immobility.

ABSTRACT: Post-contact immobility (PCI) is a final attempt to avoid predation. Here, for the first time, we examine the pattern of movement and immobility when antlion larvae resume activity after PCI. To simulate contact with, and escape from, a predator we dropped the larvae onto three different substrates: Paper, Shallow sand (2.3mm-deep) and Deep sand (4.6mm-deep). The Paper lining a Petri dish represented a hard surface that antlion larvae could not penetrate to hide. The Shallow sand permitted the antlions to dig but not to submerge completely whereas the Deep sand allowed them both to dig and to submerge. We tracked their paths automatically and recorded alternating immobility and movement durations over 90min. On the impenetrable substrate, antlion larvae showed super-diffusive dispersal, th

SUBMITTER: Franks NR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11340899 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature