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Is naïveté forever? Alien predator and aggressor recognition by two endemic island reptiles

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Abstract

The disproportionate impacts of invasive predators are often attributed to the naïveté (i.e., inefficient or non-existing anti-predator behavior) of island native species having evolved without such predators. Naïveté has long been regarded as a fixed characteristic, but a few recent studies indicate a capacity for behavioral adaptation in native species in contact with alien predators. Here, we tested whether two reptiles endemic to New Caledonia, a skink, Caledoniscincus austrocaledonicus, and a gecko, Bavayia septuiclavis, recognized and responded to the odor of six introduced species (two rodents, the feral cat, and three species of ants). We used an experimental design in which reptiles had a choice of retreat sites with or without the odor of predators or aggressors. Skinks avoided two or three of the predators, whereas geckos avoided at most one. These results suggest that diurnal skinks are more responsive than nocturnal geckos to the odor of introduced predators. Neither skinks nor geckos avoided the three species of ants. Thus, the odors of alien predators are shown to influence retreat site selection by two native island reptiles. Moreover, the study suggests that this loss of naïveté varies among native species, probably as a consequence of the intensity of the threat and of time since introduction. These findings argue for re-thinking the behavioral flexibility of ectothermic reptiles in terms of their responses to biological invasion.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the staff of the Parc Provincial de la Rivière Bleue for allowing us access to field sites and the Parc Zoologique et Forestier for providing us with the boxes used in the experiments. This study was funded by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Institut Écologie et Environnement (INEE) (PEPS Program), and A.G. was funded by a Ph.D. scholarship from the École Doctorale Sciences de l’Environnement EDSE251. We are grateful to H. de Meringo, F. Rigault, L. Debar, M. Cateine, and E. Bourguet for their help in the field, N. Kaldonski for his advice on the experimental settings, and R. Pouteau for his help in discussion and drafting of the manuscript. We thank M. Sweetko for English language revision. We appreciate the comments by four anonymous reviewers who helped improve the manuscript.

Ethical standards

The experiments comply with the current laws of France and New Caledonia (permission for sampling protocol (decreen 2155-2012/ARR/DENV)).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Correspondence to A. Gérard.

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Communicated by: Sven Thatje

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Gérard, A., Jourdan, H., Cugnière, C. et al. Is naïveté forever? Alien predator and aggressor recognition by two endemic island reptiles. Naturwissenschaften 101, 921–927 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-014-1233-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-014-1233-8

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