Abstract
In prey species, vigilance is an important part of the decision making process related to predation risk effects. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms shaping vigilance behavior provides relevant insights on factors influencing individual fitness. We investigated the role of extrinsic and intrinsic factors on vigilance behavior in Mediterranean mouflon (Ovis gmelini musimon×Ovis sp.) in a study site spatially and temporally contrasted in human pressures. Both sexes were less vigilant in the wildlife reserve compared to surrounding unprotected areas, except for males during the hunting period. During this period, males tended to be less strictly restricted to the reserve than females what might lead to a pervasive effect of hunting within the protected area, resulting in an increase in male vigilance. It might also be a rutting effect that did not occur in unprotected areas because males vigilance was already maximal in response to human disturbances. In both sexes, yearlings were less vigilant than adults, probably because they traded off vigilance for learning and energy acquisition and/or because they relied on adult experience present in the group. Similarly, non-reproductive females benefited of the vigilance effort provided by reproductive females when belonging to the same group. However, in the absence of reproductive females, non-reproductive females were as vigilant as reproductive females. Increasing group size was only found to reduce vigilance in females (up to 17.5%), not in males. We also showed sex-specific responses to habitat characteristics. Females increased their vigilance when habitat visibility decreased (up to 13.8%) whereas males increased their vigilance when feeding on low quality sites, i.e., when concomitant increase in chewing time can be devoted to vigilance with limited costs. Our global approach was able to disentangle the sex-specific sources of variation in mouflon vigilance and stressed the importance of reserves in managing and conserving wild sheep populations.
Highlights
Predators may impact demography of their preys both through lethal direct effects, and lethal and non-lethal indirect effects [1,2,3,4]
The Wildlife Reserve (WR) has been created to favour settlement of the mouflon introduced in our study site by protecting them against human activities, with the mid-term perspective of sustainable population harvesting in the surrounding areas
We showed that vigilance of mouflon was low in WR compared to UA
Summary
Predators may impact demography of their preys both through lethal direct effects, and lethal and non-lethal indirect effects [1,2,3,4]. Previous studies have shown that risk effects can impact prey dynamics even more than the direct mortality due to killing by predators [6,8]. It has been shown in grey partridges (Perdix perdix) that the scanning of the surroundings in order to detect predators arose at the expense of feeding under certain circumstances and, may impact fitness over the long term [9]. A better understanding of the factors shaping vigilance behavior should help to provide insight into spatial, temporal and inter-individual variation in risk effects, and in mechanisms causing fitness variation among individuals [11]. Whereas our knowledge has considerably improved over the last decade on independent factors influencing vigilance behavior, global approaches investigating simultaneously (e.g., [12]) and interactively (e.g., [13]) all important components expected to influence vigilance behavior (spatial, temporal and individual variation) have focused less attention
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