Broadening the ecology of fear: non-lethal effects arise from diverse responses to predation and parasitism.

ABSTRACT: Research on the 'ecology of fear' posits that defensive prey responses to avoid predation can cause non-lethal effects across ecological scales. Parasites also elicit defensive responses in hosts with associated non-lethal effects, which raises the longstanding, yet unresolved question of how non-lethal effects of parasites compare with those of predators. We developed a framework for systematically answering this question for all types of predator-prey and host-parasite systems. Our framework reveals likely differences in non-lethal effects not only between predators and parasites, but also between different types of predators and parasites. Trait responses should be strongest towards predators, parasitoids and parasitic castrators, but more numerous and perhaps more frequent for parasite

SUBMITTER: Daversa DR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7935051 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature