Biomedical subjects

Will Cresswell

Publications and source records attributed to Will Cresswell.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Testing domains of danger in the selfish herd: sparrowhawks target widely spaced redshanks in flocks.

The main tenet of Hamilton's 'selfish herd theory' for the evolution of group living is that individual risk of being killed upon attack by a predator is greater when relatively far from conspecifics. Here we examine the role of spacing using video analysis of encounters between redshanks, Tringa totanus, in flocks on saltmarsh, and sparrowhawks, Accipiter nisus, surprise hunting from adjacent woodland. Targeted redshanks were 35% (approx. 5 body lengths) more widely spaced than their nearest non-targeted neighbours, controlling for proximity to the hawk. Although targeted redshanks were also twice as slow to escape, the effect dropped out of a model containing spacing, which alone accounted for twice as much variation as escape delay. Redshanks were more tightly spaced on the riskiest side of the flock, suggesting they attempted to compensate for the greater risk, while birds on the edges of flocks were more widely spaced than those in the centre. Our analysis controls for most of the confounding effects associated with the edge-centre comparisons that are normally used in similar studies and provides strong support for spacing-dependent differential predation risk in the wild. In general, we suggest that positive selection for tight spacing when prey are stationary is largely due to domains of danger, but that this also leads to positive selection when prey are mobile because of predator confusion.

Animals↗

PubMed2006

Mass-dependent predation risk as a mechanism for house sparrow declines?

House sparrow (Passer domesticus) numbers have declined rapidly in both rural and urban habitats across Western Europe over the last 30 years, leading to their inclusion on the UK conservation red list. The decline in farmland has been linked to a reduction in winter survival caused by reduced food supply. This reduction in food supply is associated with agricultural intensification that has led to the loss of seed-rich winter stubble and access to spilt grain. However, urban house sparrows have also declined, suggesting that reduced food supply in farmland is not the sole reason for the decline. Here, we show that changes in house sparrow mass and thus fat reserves are not regulated to minimize starvation risk, as would be expected if limited winter food were the only cause of population decline. Instead, the species appears to be responding to mass-dependent predation risk, with starvation risk and predation risk traded-off such that house sparrows may be particularly vulnerable to environmental change that reduces the predictability of the food supply.

Animals↗

PubMed2006

Behaviourally mediated indirect effects: interference competition increases predation mortality in foraging redshanks.

1. The effect of competition for a limiting resource on the population dynamics of competitors is usually assumed to operate directly through starvation, yet may also affect survival indirectly through behaviourally mediated effects that affect risk of predation. Thus, competition can affect more than two trophic levels, and we aim here to provide an example of this. 2. We show that the foraging success of redshanks Tringa totanus (L.) foraging on active prey was highest in the front of flocks, whereas this was not the case for redshanks foraging on inactive prey. Also, when foraging on active prey, foraging success in a flock decreased as more birds passed through a patch, while overall foraging success was not lower on subsequent visits to the same patch. Thus, redshanks foraging on active prey suffered from interference competition, whereas this was not the case for redshanks foraging on inactive prey. 3. This interference competition led to differences in activity: redshanks attaining a lower foraging success had a higher walking rate. Greater activity was associated with wider flock spacing and shorter distances to cover, which has previously been shown to increase predation risk and mortality from sparrowhawks Accipiter nisus (L.). 4. We conclude that behavioural adaptations of prey species can lead to interference competition in foraging redshanks, and thus can affect their predation risk and mortality through increased activity. This study is one of the first to show how interference competition can be a mechanism for behaviourally mediated indirect effects, and provides further evidence for the suggestion that a single species occupying an intermediate trophic level may be simultaneously top-down controlled by a predator and bottom-up controlled by a behavioural response of its prey.

Animals↗