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Article
Perceived Risk of Predation Affects Reproductive Life-History Traits in Gambusia holbrooki, but Not in Heterandria formosa
PLoS ONE
  • Shomen Kukherjee, Florida International University; University of KwaZulu-Natal - Durban, South Africa
  • Michael Heithaus, Florida International University
  • Joel C. Trexler, Florida International University
  • Jayanti Ray-Mukherjee, Florida International University; University of KwaZulu-Natal - Durban, South Africa
  • Jeremy Vaudo, Florida International University
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-13-2014
Abstract

Key to predicting impacts of predation is understanding the mechanisms through which predators impact prey populations. While consumptive effects are well-known, non-consumptive predator effects (risk effects) are increasingly being recognized as important. Studies of risk effects, however, have focused largely on how trade-offs between food and safety affect fitness. Less documented, and appreciated, is the potential for predator presence to directly suppress prey reproduction and affect life-history characteristics. For the first time, we tested the effects of visual predator cues on reproduction of two prey species with different reproductive modes, lecithotrophy (i.e. embryonic development primarily fueled by yolk) and matrotrophy (i.e. energy for embryonic development directly supplied by the mother to the embryo through a vascular connection). Predation risk suppressed reproduction in the lecithotrophic prey (Gambusia holbrokii) but not the matrotroph (Heterandria formosa). Predator stress caused G. holbrooki to reduce clutch size by 43%, and to produce larger and heavier offspring compared to control females. H. formosa, however, did not show any such difference. In G. holbrooki we also found a significantly high percentage (14%) of stillbirths in predator-exposed treatments compared to controls (2%). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first direct empirical evidence of predation stress affecting stillbirths in prey. Our results suggest that matrotrophy, superfetation (clutch overlap), or both decrease the sensitivity of mothers to environmental fluctuation in resource (food) and stress (predation risk) levels compared to lecithotrophy. These mechanisms should be considered both when modeling consequences of perceived risk of predation on prey-predator population dynamics and when seeking to understand the evolution of reproductive modes.

Comments

©2014 Mukherjee et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Additional Comments
NSF grant #: DBI-0620409
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0088832
Citation Information
Shomen Kukherjee, Michael Heithaus, Joel C. Trexler, Jayanti Ray-Mukherjee, et al.. "Perceived Risk of Predation Affects Reproductive Life-History Traits in Gambusia holbrooki, but Not in Heterandria formosa" PLoS ONE Vol. 9 Iss. 2 (2014) p. e88832 1 - 6 ISSN: 1932-6203
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/jeremy-vaudo/28/