How the informational environment shapes how prey estimate predation risk and the resulting indirect effects of predators

Abstract

Prey often behaviorally respond to changes in the intensity of predation risk, and these responses can often significantly shape community dynamics, but flexible responses to changes in predation risk require that prey have accurate and timely estimates of predation risk. We present a model of how a prey's environment should shape the cognitive rules they use to assess predation risk and present how these rules shape the effects predators have on prey and the prey's resources. In the model, prey can rely on a combination of a fixed estimate of predation risk and a flexible estimate of predation risk shaped by their recent experience. Prey relied more on their experience to estimate predation risk when predator cues were more reliable and when predator densities were lower. In addition, when the prey cognitive rules favored a greater use of their experience to estimate predation risk, the presence of predators caused larger nonconsumptive effects and generally smaller consumptive effects on prey and the prey's resources. These differences in prey cognition also altered the effects that alterations of cue reliability and predator densities had on prey and their resources.