Exposure to predators reduces collective foraging aggressiveness and eliminates its relationship with colony personality composition.

ABSTRACT: Predation is a ubiquitous threat that often plays a central role in determining community dynamics. Predators can impact prey species by directly consuming them, or indirectly causing prey to modify their behavior. Direct consumption has classically been the focus of research on predator-prey interactions, but substantial evidence now demonstrates that the indirect effects of predators on prey populations are at least as strong as, if not stronger than, direct consumption. Social animals, particularly those that live in confined colonies, rely on coordinated actions that may be vulnerable to the presence of a predator, thus impacting the society's productivity and survival. To examine the effect of predators on the behavior of social animal societies, we observed the collective foraging of

SUBMITTER: Wright CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5871624 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature