Abstract
AbstractMany animal populations are exposed to disturbance originating from human activities. In response to human disturbance, certain animals display a variety of potentially costly behavioural responses, such as increased antipredator behaviour or relocation to new areas. In contrast, other animals seemingly thrive in the presence of humans and benefit from human‐derived resources. Flight initiation distance (FID: the distance between predator and prey when prey starts to flee) is a measure commonly used to assess animals’ tolerance to humans. In this study, we tested how FID changes in relation to human presence in two hyrax species in Serengeti National Park. Hyraxes living on kopjes (rock outcrops) among human settlements showed a significantly shorter FID than hyraxes living on kopjes without human settlements. In addition, we found that hyraxes feeding before the experiment had shorter FID than hyraxes resting or being vigilant, and hyraxes disturbed during the early morning had shorter FID than hyraxes disturbed during late morning. We did not find any significant effects of group size or species composition on FID. Our results suggest that hyraxes living in the presence of humans are habituated and are not adversely affected by human settlements.
Highlights
Protected areas aim to conserve ecosystems and the wildlife they support from threatening anthropogenic processes (Sinclair & Dobson, 2015)
Hyraxes living on human‐inhabited kopjes showed decreased sen‐ sitivity towards human approach and had significantly shorter flight initiation distance (FID) than hyraxes living on kopjes without human settlements
We found that hyraxes feeding before the initiation of experiments had shorter FID than hyraxes being vigilant, and hyraxes disturbed during early morning had shorter FID than hyraxes disturbed during late morning
Summary
Protected areas aim to conserve ecosystems and the wildlife they support from threatening anthropogenic processes (Sinclair & Dobson, 2015). Habituation re‐ fers to stimulus repetition due to sustained exposure that results in an individual becoming inattentive towards an object or situation that initially conveyed important cues (Rankin et al, 2009; Shulgina, 2005) This kind of behaviour is often developed towards humans for animals inhabiting areas with human activity (McGowan, Patel, Stroh, & Blumstein, 2014; Rodriguez‐Prieto, Fernández‐Juricic, Martín, & Regis, 2009; Samia, Nakagawa, Nomura, Rangel, & Blumstein, 2015; Samuni, Mundry, Terkel, Zuberbühler, & Hobaiter, 2014). The risk al‐ location hypothesis (Lima & Bednekoff, 1999) predicts that if animals experience frequent or prolonged high‐risk events, they must make a trade‐off between antipredator behaviour and fitness‐increasing activity and reduce the antipredator behaviour to meet its needs for food and rest In both cases of habituation and risk allocation, FID is expected to decrease with increased non‐threatening human activ‐ ity. We expected FID to be shorter for hyraxes that were regularly exposed to human activities, as their tolerance towards humans would be greater than for hyraxes un‐ familiar with humans
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