The context dependence of non-consumptive predator effects
Aaron J. Wirsing1, Michael R.
Heithaus2, Joel S. Brown3,4, Burt P.
Kotler5, Oswald J. Schmitz6
1School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, Box
352100, University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195, USA, wirsinga@uw.edu (corresponding author)
2Department of Biological Sciences, Marine Sciences
Program, 3000 NE 151st St, Florida International University, North
Miami, FL 33181, USA, heithaus@fiu.edu
3Department of Biological Sciences, University of
Illinois at Chicago, 845 West Taylor Street, Chicago, IL 60607, USA,
squirrel@darwiniandynamics.org
4Department of Integrated Mathematical Oncology,
Moffitt Cancer Center, 12902 Magnolia Dr., Tampa, FL, 33613, USA
5Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, Jacob Blaustein
Institutes for Desert Research
84990 Midreshet, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Ben-Gurion, Israel,
kotler@bgu.ac.il
6School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale
University, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, USA,
Oswald.schmitz@yale.edu
Running head : Context dependence of NCEs
Statement of authorship : AW and MH conceived of the idea for the
paper, and AW performed the meta-analysis. All authors wrote the
manuscript as a team and contributed substantially to revisions.
Data accessibility statement : Should the manuscript be accepted,
the data supporting the results will be archived in the dryad digital
repository.
Counts : Abstract (184); Main text (7495); Cited references (164);
Tables (0); Figures (4); Text boxes (3)
Key Words : anti-predator behavior; contingency; energetic state;
meta-analysis; predation risk; predator-prey interactions; risk effects;
state-dependence; top-down effects; trade-offs
Abstract. – Non-consumptive predator effects (NCEs) are now
widely recognized for their capacity to shape ecosystem structure and
function. Yet, forecasting the propagation of these predator-induced
trait changes through particular communities remains a challenge, in
part because we lack a predictive framework that accounts for
environmental and species context. Accordingly, focusing on plasticity
in prey anti-predator behaviors, we conceptualize the multi-stage
process by which predators trigger direct and indirect NCEs, review and
then distill potential drivers of NCE contingencies into three key
categories (properties of the prey, predator, and setting), and conduct
a meta-analysis to quantify the extent to which prey behavioral
plasticity in response to predation risk hinges on a well-studied driver
– prey energetic state. Our synthesis underscores the myriad factors
that can generate NCE contingencies while guiding how research might
better anticipate and account for them. We highlight two key knowledge
gaps that continue to hinder development of a comprehensive framework
for exploring non-consumptive predator-prey interactions. These are
insufficient exploration of 1) context-dependent indirect NCEs and 2)
the ways in which direct and indirect NCEs are shaped interactively by
multiple drivers of context dependence.