The Ecology of Fear
This 4-word phrase describes the psychological and behavioral impact that predators have on prey, which can alter entire ecosystems without being lethal
What is the ecology of fear?
The reintroduction of wolves to this National Park famously altered elk browsing habits near rivers, showcasing a massive non-consumptive effect
What is Yellowstone National Park?
While consumptive effects remove an individual from a population entirely, non-consumptive effects act on individuals that are still this.
What is alive or living?
This term can describe the chemical signals, pheromones, or waste products that can inadvertently tip off a prey animal to a predator's presence
What is secretions (or VOCs)?
Because hiding or fleeing requires immediate fuel, non-consumptive effects frequently cause prey animals to spike in this process
What is metabolism (or metabolic rate)?
When a grasshopper alters its diet from grass to carbohydrate-rich goldenrod because of stress from spiders, it is changing this specific ecological property
What is foraging behavior?
In marine ecosystems, the mere presence of these apex predators causes sea turtles to shift their foraging from nutritious seagrass beds to safer, lower-quality habitats
What are sharks or killer whales?
This term describes a classic trophic cascade where predators directly control prey populations by killing and eating them
What is a density-mediated trophic cascade?
Non-consumptive effects often cause a "spatial shift," meaning prey leave their preferred habitat for a safer area known as a predator-free this
What is a refuge?
Spending hours scanning for predators instead of eating often leads to a severe reduction in this biological metric, measured by an organism's offspring production
What is fitness (or fecundity)?
This term describes a cascade where predators alter prey traits (like behavior or morphology) rather than prey numbers, influencing lower trophic levels
What is a trait-mediated trophic cascade (TMIE)?
When threatened by predatory crabs, these bivalves could grow thicker shells instead of reproducing, a physical non-consumptive defense
What are oysters (or mussels honestly)?
Ecologists now recognize that non-consumptive effects can sometimes exert more pressure on an ecosystem than consumptive effects because they affect this percentage of the prey population
What is up to 100% or the entire population?
What is oviparous?
Growing defensive armor or spending time hiding often results in a lower rate of this biological process, delaying how fast an organism reaches maturity
What is growth (or development)?
Non-consumptive effects often cost prey energy because they spend less time doing this vital activity and more time hiding
What is foraging (or feeding)?
One method of pest management in coffee fruit is introducing this organism to fend off the coffee berry borer beetle?
What are arboreal ants?
In a 3-level food chain (Predator → Herbivore → Plant), a non-consumptive effect causes plant biomass to do this when a predator arrives
What is increase?
This adjective describes the indirect interactions that occur because a predator changes the physical or behavioral traits of a prey species
In the oyster reefs, this organism has to decide if they will risk predation by toad fish in order to forage for juvenile oysters
What are mud crabs?
To study the effects of the ecology of fear, researchers will often do this sort of modification to predators
What is non-lethal manipulation?
In agricultural fields, the presence of ladybugs can reduce the damage caused by these pests simply because the pests stop feeding and panic (or get consumed)
What are aphids?
Predators can cause cascading effects across a population that they never interact with by foraging along this type of ecosystem transition area
What is an ecotone (or ecosystem boundary)?
This is another name for the lowest hierarchical position in a food chain or food web
What is basal?
Chronically elevated levels of this specific class of hormones, like corticosterone, are often measured in prey to quantify the physiological stress of predator presence
What are glucocorticoids (or stress hormones)?