African Wild Dogs as a Fugitive Species: Playback Experiments Investigate How Wild Dogs Respond to their Major Competitors
African Wild Dogs as a Fugitive Species: Playback Experiments Investigate How Wild Dogs Respond to their Major Competitors
复制标题
非洲野狗作为逃亡物种：回放实验调查野狗对其主要竞争对手的反应
DOI：
10.1111/j.1439-0310.2011.01992.x
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发表时间：
2012
期刊：
影响因子：
1.7
通讯作者：
K. McComb
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hugh S. Webster;J. Mcnutt;K. McComb
有人认为，非洲野狗Lycaon Pictus需要特别大的栖息地(因此出现在如此低的密度)，因为它们受到与更大的共域食肉动物，即狮子、美洲豹和斑点鬣狗的竞争的限制。为了在最接近的水平上研究这种关系并探索哪些因素调节这种关系，我们进行了音频回放实验，研究野狗对狮子或鬣狗模拟接近的反应。主要的发现是，野狗总是直接远离狮子的咆哮，但当玩鬣狗咆哮时，要么坚持自己的立场，要么稍后朝着随机的方向移动。这些结果表明，狮子代表着对野狗的直接高级威胁，最好避免，而来自鬣狗的威胁可能不是那么大，或者只是不可避免。野狗似乎在与狮子互动的过程中对伏击风险进行了一些评估，从它们在不同植被密度(因此也就是伏击潜力)的栖息地撤退的不同潜伏期就可以看出这一点。此外，有较小幼崽的狼群更有可能发出警报，并且在接触狮子咆哮后的一个小时内表现出较慢的撤退速度。其他被调查的变量(竞争对手群体大小、狮子性别、幼崽的存在)无法解释野狗反应的差异。
It has been suggested that African wild dogs Lycaon pictus need exceptionally large home ranges (and hence occur at such low densities) because they are limited by competition with larger sympatric carnivores, namely lions Panthera leo and spotted hyenas Crocuta crocuta .T o investigate this relationship at a proximate level and explore which factors mediate it, we conducted audio playback experiments examining how wild dogs responded to the simulated proximity of either lions or hyenas. The principle finding was that wild dogs consistently moved directly away from lion roars, but when played hyena whoops either stood their ground or, later, moved off in a random direction. These results suggest that lions represent an immediate high-level threat to wild dogs that is invariably best avoided, whilst the threat from hyenas may not be so great or perhaps is simply unavoidable. Wild dogs appeared to make some assessment of ambush risk during interactions with lions, illustrated by the varying latency to their retreat in habitats of differing vegetation density (and hence ambush potential). Additionally, packs with younger pups were more likely to alarm call and exhibited a slower rate of retreat in the hour following exposure to lion roars. Other variables investigated (competitor group size, lion sex, presence of pups) failed to explain variation in wild dogs’ responses.