Abstract
One of the key gaps in understanding the impacts of predation by small mammalian predators on prey is how habitat structure affects the hunting success of small predators, such as feral cats. These effects are poorly understood due to the difficulty of observing actual hunting behaviours. We attached collar-mounted video cameras to feral cats living in a tropical savanna environment in northern Australia, and measured variation in hunting success among different microhabitats (open areas, dense grass and complex rocks). From 89 hours of footage, we recorded 101 hunting events, of which 32 were successful. Of these kills, 28% were not eaten. Hunting success was highly dependent on microhabitat structure surrounding prey, increasing from 17% in habitats with dense grass or complex rocks to 70% in open areas. This research shows that habitat structure has a profound influence on the impacts of small predators on their prey. This has broad implications for management of vegetation and disturbance processes (like fire and grazing) in areas where feral cats threaten native fauna. Maintaining complex vegetation cover can reduce predation rates of small prey species from feral cat predation.
Highlights
The risk of predation on prey can vary across landscapes, ranging from areas of refuge where the impact of predation is low to areas with high predation risk and impact [1,2]
Feral cats were over four times more likely to make a successful kill when the prey was located in an open microhabitat, than if it was in complex vegetation or rocks
Our new results suggest that the reason for this preference is the higher hunting success that cats would achieve in these habitats. This result is consistent with studies describing mortality in small mammals in northern Australia, where survival is consistently lower in areas with open microhabitats versus areas with dense grass or rocks [25,26,27,28]
Summary
The risk of predation on prey can vary across landscapes, ranging from areas of refuge where the impact of predation is low to areas with high predation risk and impact [1,2]. This variation is largely driven by differences in predator densities, by differences in spatial and temporal behaviours of predators, and by variation in hunting success by predators. Methods for measuring the first two drivers are well developed, measuring hunting rates and hunting success can be far more difficult This is especially relevant for small terrestrial vertebrate predators, which are difficult to observe without altering their behaviour. Others depend on open vegetation to find and catch prey or PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0133915 August 19, 2015
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