Avoidance or escape? Discriminating between two hypotheses for the function of schooling in threespine sticklebacks.

ABSTRACT: In many species, there are antipredator benefits of grouping with conspecifics. For example, animals often aggregate to better avoid potential predators (the 'avoidance hypothesis'). Animals also often group together in direct response to predators to facilitate escape (the 'escape hypothesis'). The avoidance hypothesis predicts that animals with previous experience with predation risk will aggregate more than animals without experience with predation risk. In contrast, the escape hypothesis predicts that immediate exposure to predation risk causes animals to aggregate. We simultaneously tested these two nonexclusive hypotheses in threespine sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus. Schooling behaviour (time spent schooling, latency to school and time schooling in the middle of the scho

SUBMITTER: Grobis MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3972768 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature