Latent inhibition of predator recognition by embryonic amphibians

Abstract

To avoid being captured, prey animals need to be able to distinguish predators from non-predators. Recent studies have shown that amphibians can learn to recognize their future predators while in the egg. Here, we investigated whether amphibians would similarly be able to learn to recognize non-predators while in the egg. We exposed newly laid wood frog eggs to the odour of tiger salamander or a water control daily for 5 days. After hatching, the wood frog larvae were raised for two weeks at which time we tried to condition them to recognize the salamander as a predator. Larvae were exposed to injured conspecific cues paired with salamander odour, a well-established mode of learning for aquatic prey. When subsequently tested for their response to salamander odour, the larvae pre-exposed to water as embryos showed significant anti-predator responses. However, larvae pre-exposed to the salamander odour as embryos showed no learning of the predator, indicating that they had already learned to recognize the salamander as a non-predator. These results indicate that amphibian embryos can (i) learn to recognize stimuli as non-threatening and (ii) remember it for at least two weeks. The widespread ability of prey to learn to recognize non-predators might explain the persistence of injured conspecific cues as a reliable mechanism for learned predator recognition.

Figure 1

Mean (±s.e.) proportion change in line crosses for tadpoles exposed to salamander odour. Wood frogs were pre-exposed for 5 days to either water (W) or salamander odour (SO) during their embryonic development and later conditioned as tadpoles to learn to recognize salamander as a threat through the pairing of injured conspecific cues and salamander odour (IC+SO) or through a control of water paired with salamander odour (W+SO).