Interactive effects of reproductive assets and ambient predation risk on the threat-sensitive decisions of Trinidadian guppies.

Abstract

Threat-sensitive behavioral trade-offs allow prey animals to balance the conflicting demands of successful predator detection and avoidance and a suite of fitness-related activities such as foraging, mating, and territorial defense. Here, we test the hypothesis that background predation level and reproductive status interact to determine the form and intensity of threat-sensitive behavioral decisions of wild-caught female Trinidadian guppies Poecilia reticulata. Gravid and nongravid guppies collected from high- and low-predation pressure populations were exposed to serial dilutions of conspecific chemical alarm cues. Our results demonstrate that there was `no effect of reproductive status on the response of females originating from a low-predation population, with both gravid and nongravid guppies exhibiting strong anti-predator responses to the lowest concentration of alarm cues tested. Increasing cue concentrations did not result in increases in response intensity. Conversely, we found a significant effect of reproductive status among guppies from a high-predation population. Nongravid females from the high-predation population exhibited a strong graded (proportional) response to increasing concentrations of alarm cue. Gravid females from the same high-predation population, however, shifted to a nongraded response. Together, these results demonstrate that accrued reproductive assets influence the threat-sensitive behavioral decisions of prey, but only under conditions of high-ambient predation risk.