Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Feb 3;12(2):e0171593.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0171593. eCollection 2017.

Domestic cats and dogs create a landscape of fear for pest rodents around rural homesteads

Themb'alilahlwa A M Mahlaba  1 , Ara Monadjem  1   2 , Robert McCleery  3 , Steven R Belmain  4
Affiliations

Domestic cats and dogs create a landscape of fear for pest rodents around rural homesteads

Themb'alilahlwa A M Mahlaba et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Using domestic predators such as cats to control rodent pest problems around farms and homesteads is common across the world. However, practical scientific evidence on the impact of such biological control in agricultural settings is often lacking. We tested whether the presence of domestic cats and/or dogs in rural homesteads would affect the foraging behaviour of pest rodents. We estimated giving up densities (GUDs) from established feeding patches and estimated relative rodent activity using tracking tiles at 40 homesteads across four agricultural communities. We found that the presence of cats and dogs at the same homestead significantly reduced activity and increased GUDs (i.e. increased perception of foraging cost) of pest rodent species. However, if only cats or dogs alone were present at the homestead there was no observed difference in rodent foraging activity in comparison to homesteads with no cats or dogs. Our results suggest that pest rodent activity can be discouraged through the presence of domestic predators. When different types of predator are present together they likely create a heightened landscape of fear for foraging rodents.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Rodent activity in homesteads was quantified by using tracking tiles.
(a) blackened with soot; (b) marked with rodent footprints.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Boxplot showing median, and upper and lower quartiles, of rat activity around rural homesteads in Swaziland in the four treatments of this study averaged over the five nights.
Treatments are with cats alone, with dogs alone, with both cats and dogs, and with neither cats nor dogs in: (a) July 2015; and (b) October 2015.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Boxplot showing median, and upper and lower quartiles, of rat giving up densities in rural homesteads in Swaziland in the four treatments of this study averaged over the five nights.
Treatments were with cats alone, with dogs alone, with both cats and dogs, and with neither cats nor dogs.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Barbosa P, Castellanos I. Eds. Ecology of Predator-Prey Interactions. New York: Oxford University Press; 2005.
    1. Dielenberg RA, Mcgregor IS. Defensive behavior in rats towards predatory odors: a review. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. 2001; 25: 597–609. - PubMed
    1. Apfelbach R, Blanchard CD, Blanchard RJ, Hayes RA, Mcgregor IS. The effects of predator odors in mammalian prey species: A review of field and laboratory studies. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. 2005; 29: 1123–1144. 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2005.05.005 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Kats LB, Dill LM. The scent of death: Chemosensory assessment of predation risk by prey animals. Écoscience. 1998; 5: 361–394.
    1. Burwash MD, Tobin ME, Woolhouse AD, Sullivan TP. Laboratory evaluation of predator odors for eliciting an avoidance response in roof rats (Rattus rattus). Journal of Chemical Ecology. 1998;24: 49–66.