Virtual prey with Lévy motion are preferentially attacked by predatory fish
Abstract
Of widespread interest in animal behavior and ecology is how animals search their environment for resources, and whether these search strategies are optimal. However, movement also affects predation risk through effects on encounter rates, the conspicuousness of prey, and the success of attacks. Here, we use predatory fish attacking a simulation of virtual prey to test whether predation risk is associated with movement behavior. Despite often being demonstrated to be a more efficient strategy for finding resources such as food, we find that prey displaying Lévy motion are twice as likely to be targeted by predators than prey utilizing Brownian motion. This can be explained by the predators, at the moment of the attack, preferentially targeting prey that were moving with straighter trajectories rather than prey that were turning more. Our results emphasize that costs of predation risk need to be considered alongside the foraging benefits when comparing different movement strategies.
Citation
Ioannou , C C , Carvalho , L A B , Budleigh , C & Ruxton , G D 2023 , ' Virtual prey with Lévy motion are preferentially attacked by predatory fish ' , Behavioral Ecology , vol. 34 , no. 4 , arad039 , pp. 695-699 . https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arad039
Publication
Behavioral Ecology
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1465-7279Type
Journal article
Description
Funding: This work was funded by a NERC Independent Research Fellowship (NE/K009370/1) and a Leverhulme Trust grant (RPG-2017-041 V) awarded to C.C.I.Collections
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