Marmots do not consistently use their left eye to respond to an approaching threat but those that did fled sooner
Marmots do not consistently use their left eye to respond to an approaching threat but those that did fled sooner
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DOI：
10.1093/cz/zoy003
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发表时间：
2018-12-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.2
通讯作者：
Yin, Lijie
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Blumstein, Daniel T.;Diaz, Alexis;Yin, Lijie
在许多脊椎动物中，与左视野相连的大脑右半球专门处理有关威胁的信息，而与右视野相连的大脑左半球专门处理有关同种物的信息。这被称为半球侧化。但是，对捕食者的反应过于可预测的个体可能会降低存活率，我们可能会期望选择一些不可预测的反应。我们研究了黄腹土拨鼠的半球偏侧化，黄腹土拨鼠是一种社会性啮齿动物，会成为各种陆地和空中捕食者的猎物。我们首先问他们是否对掠夺性威胁有横向反应。然后我们问他们用来评估风险的眼睛是否影响了他们对风险的感知。我们记录了土拨鼠最初看的方向，然后朝它们走去，直到它们逃走。我们记录了它们对我们的实验方法的反应距离，它们看着我们的眼睛，以及它们逃跑的距离（即飞行起始距离；FID）。我们发现土拨鼠在面对逼近的威胁时没有眼睛偏好。此外，人口不是由以一致方式作出反应的个人组成的。然而，我们发现用左眼看靠近的人的土拨鼠有更大的FIDs，这表明风险评估受到用于监测威胁的眼睛的影响。这些发现与选择相一致，尽管潜在的侧化，但捕食者对猎物的预测更少。
In many vertebrates, the brain's right hemisphere which is connected to the left visual field specializes in the processing of information about threats while the left hemisphere which is connected to the right visual field specializes in the processing of information about conspecifics. This is referred to as hemispheric lateralization. But individuals that are too predictable in their response to predators could have reduced survival and we may expect selection for somewhat unpredictable responses. We studied hemispheric lateralization in yellow-bellied marmots Marmota flaviventer, a social rodent that falls prey to a variety of terrestrial and aerial predators. We first asked if they have lateralized responses to a predatory threat. We then asked if the eye that they used to assess risk influenced their perceptions of risk. We recorded the direction marmots were initially looking and then walked toward them until they fled. We recorded the distance that they responded to our experimental approach by looking, the eye with which they looked at us, and the distance at which they fled (i.e., flight initiation distance; FID). We found that marmots had no eye preference with which they looked at an approaching threat. Furthermore, the population was not comprised of individuals that responded in consistent ways. However, we found that marmots that looked at the approaching person with their left eye had larger FIDs suggesting that risk assessment was influenced by the eye used to monitor the threat. These findings are consistent with selection to make prey less predictable for their predators, despite underlying lateralization.