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Anuran tadpoles learn to recognize injury cues from members of the same prey guild

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Abstract

Recognition of predation risk from cues released from injured heterospecific could be beneficial when prey belongs to the same prey guild. Here, we performed three experiments. Experiment 1 showed that P. thaul tadpoles reduced their activity levels when exposed to conspecific injury cues, but not when exposed to amphipod injury cues. Experiment 2 tested whether P. thaul tadpoles can learn to recognize predation risk from chemical cues released from injured heterospecifics from the same prey guild (amphipod, Hyalella patagonica). A group of tadpoles were conditioned by exposing them to a specific concentration of amphipod injury cues paired with conspecific injury cues. Two days later, we evaluated changes in the activity of tadpoles when they were exposed to amphipod cues. As a control of learning, we used an unpaired group. Additionally, we used more control groups to fully investigate the learning mechanism. Our results showed that tadpoles can learn to recognize predation risk from injured amphipods and that the mechanism underlying the observed learned response could be associative. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 2 and also showed that a low concentration of amphipod cues did not sustain that learning.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to P Abate, C Arias, the editor in chief and the two anonymous reviewers, who provided helpful comments to improve this work. This work was supported by Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (PICT-BID 13-2384 to MP), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (PIP-11220110100782 to MGP) and Universidad Nacional del Comahue (UNCo B 166), Argentina.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratorio de Fotobiología- INIBIOMA (CONICET–UNComa), Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente, Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche-Universidad Nacional del Comahue, San Carlos de Bariloche, Rio Negro, Argentina

    Mariana Pueta & Maria Gabriela Perotti

  2. Departamento de Biología General. (CRUB-UNComa), Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche-Universidad Nacional del Comahue, San Carlos de Bariloche, Rio Negro, Argentina

    Mariana Pueta

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  1. Mariana Pueta
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  2. Maria Gabriela Perotti
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Correspondence to Mariana Pueta.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical standard

Experiments were performed under the Guidelines for Use of Live Amphibians and Reptiles in Field Research (ASIH). Experiments followed the ethical norms imposed by Argentina (APN N° 1231). Samplings in Laguna Fantasma were authorized by Secretaria de Medio Ambiente of San Carlos de Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina (Licence N° 41-AP-2014).

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Pueta, M., Perotti, M.G. Anuran tadpoles learn to recognize injury cues from members of the same prey guild. Anim Cogn 19, 745–751 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-016-0971-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-016-0971-8

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