Harnessing natural selection to tackle the problem of prey naïveté

Evolutionary Applications
Katherine E MosebyMike Letnic

Abstract

Many populations are threatened or endangered because of excessive predation resulting from individuals' inability to recognize, avoid, or escape alien predators. Such prey naïveté is often attributed to the absence of prior experience and co-evolution between native prey and introduced predators. Many reintroduction programs focus on reducing predation rate by excluding introduced predators, a focus which ignores, and indeed exacerbates, the problem of prey naïveté. We argue for a new paradigm in reintroduction biology that expands the focus from predator control to kick-starting learning and evolutionary processes between alien predators and reintroduced prey. By exposing reintroduced prey to carefully controlled levels of alien predators, in situ predation could enhance reintroduction success by facilitating acquisition of learned antipredator responses and through natural selection for appropriate antipredator traits. This in situ predator exposure should be viewed as a long-term process but is likely to be the most efficient and expedient way to improve prey responses and assist in broadscale recovery of threatened species.

References

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Citations

Jan 30, 2019·Conservation Biology : the Journal of the Society for Conservation Biology·Oisín F SweeneyAndy Sharp
Jul 30, 2019·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Daniel T BlumsteinKatherine E Moseby
Jun 4, 2020·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Andrea AntonJaimie T A Dick
Jul 30, 2020·Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society·Deane SmithBenjamin L Allen
May 8, 2020·Conservation Biology : the Journal of the Society for Conservation Biology·Chris J Jolly, Ben L Phillips
Oct 24, 2018·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Tristan T DerhamMenna E Jones
Sep 5, 2020·Animals : an Open Access Journal From MDPI·Deane SmithBenjamin L Allen
Jan 4, 2020·Behavioural Processes·Carlos Magno de FariaCristiano Schetini de Azevedo

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