Territorial intrusion risk and antipredator behaviour: a mathematical model.

Abstract

In territorial animals that hide to avoid predators, a predatory attack creates a conflict because a hiding animal cannot defend its territory from conspecific intruders. When intruders are persistent, a past conspecific intrusion informs a territorial resident that future intrusions by the same animal are likely. Using a mathematical model, I examine the effects that past territorial intrusions can have on antipredator behaviour. Past territorial intrusions rarely affect a resident animal's time to hide (the optimal behaviour is to hide as soon as the predator initiates its attack). In contrast, past intrusions should shorten the length of time during which territory holders remain in hiding, with the magnitude of this effect depending on the time of the predator's attack, the re-intruder's pattern of return, and the intrusion rates of other conspecifics. The results of the model show that we need more information on patterns of re-intruders' behaviour, and emphasize that a similar functional explanation could underlie other behavioural changes following territorial and/or aggressive encounters (such as winner/loser effects or changes in display frequency and territorial vigilance). Differences between my findings and those from previous studies suggest that the trade-off between antipredator behaviour and territorial defence can involve different costs from the trade-off between antipredator behaviour and foraging.