Stephenson Jessica F
School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, CF10 3AX UK ; Center for Adaptation to a Changing Environment (ACE), ETH Zürich, Institute of Integrative Biology, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland ; Department of Aquatic Ecology, EAWAG, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland.
Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 2016;70:575-584. doi: 10.1007/s00265-016-2076-4. Epub 2016 Feb 23.
Information received from the visual and chemical senses is qualitatively different. For prey species in aquatic environments, visual cues are spatially and temporally reliable but risky as the prey and predator must often be in close proximity. Chemical cues, by contrast, can be distorted by currents or linger and thus provide less reliable spatial and temporal information, but can be detected from a safe distance. Chemical cues are therefore often the first detected and may provide a context in which prey respond to subsequent ambiguous cues ("context hypothesis"). Depending on this context, early chemical cues may also alert prey to attend to imminent cues in other sensory modalities ("alerting hypothesis"). In the context of predation risk, for example, it is intuitive that individuals become more responsive to subsequent ambiguous cues across sensory modalities. Consistent with the context hypothesis, guppies, , exposed to conspecific alarm cue reduced activity, a classic fright response among fish, in response to a water disturbance more than those exposed to cues of unharmed conspecifics or a water control. Despite this reduction in activity, guppies exposed to alarm cue were more attentive to visual cues than those exposed to the other chemical cues, as predicted by the alerting hypothesis. These responses contrasted with those of guppies exposed to chemical cues of undisturbed, unharmed conspecifics, which were relatively unaffected by the disturbance. This is the first study indicating that unambiguous cues detected by one sensory modality affect animal responses to subsequent ambiguous multimodal cues.
In moving water, chemical cues can be detected over longer distances than visual cues; they may therefore be detected first and alert animals to imminent visual cues. This effect is likely to be particularly important if these chemical cues are indicative of predation. I investigated how different chemical cues affect (1) guppy response to an ambiguous water disturbance and (2) their responsiveness to subsequent ambiguous visual cues. Guppies based their responses to ambiguous cues on the context implied by chemical cues: those exposed to chemical cues indicative of predation reduced activity, a classic fright response, but increased responsiveness to visual cues, relative to those exposed to control chemical cues. This is the first study to show that unambiguous cues detected by one sense affect animal responses to ambiguous cues detected by other senses.
从视觉和化学感官接收到的信息在性质上有所不同。对于水生环境中的猎物物种而言，视觉线索在空间和时间上是可靠的，但由于猎物和捕食者常常必须近距离接触，所以存在风险。相比之下，化学线索可能会被水流扭曲或留存，因此提供的空间和时间信息不太可靠，但可以在安全距离外被检测到。因此，化学线索通常是首先被检测到的，并且可能提供一种背景，在此背景下猎物会对随后模糊的线索做出反应（“背景假设”）。根据这种背景，早期的化学线索也可能提醒猎物留意其他感官模式下即将出现的线索（“提醒假设”）。例如，在捕食风险的背景下，个体对随后跨感官模式的模糊线索反应更加灵敏，这是符合直觉的。与背景假设一致，暴露于同种警报线索的孔雀鱼，相对于暴露于未受伤害的同种个体线索或水对照的孔雀鱼，对水扰动的反应是活动减少，这是鱼类中一种典型的惊吓反应。尽管活动有所减少，但正如提醒假设所预测的那样，暴露于警报线索的孔雀鱼比暴露于其他化学线索的孔雀鱼对视觉线索更加留意。这些反应与暴露于未受干扰、未受伤害的同种个体化学线索的孔雀鱼的反应形成对比，后者相对不受扰动的影响。这是第一项表明一种感官检测到的明确线索会影响动物对随后模糊的多感官线索的反应的研究。
在流动的水中，化学线索比视觉线索能在更远的距离被检测到；因此它们可能首先被检测到，并提醒动物注意即将出现的视觉线索。如果这些化学线索表明存在捕食行为，那么这种效应可能会特别重要。我研究了不同的化学线索如何影响（1）孔雀鱼对模糊水扰动的反应，以及（2）它们对随后模糊视觉线索的反应灵敏性。孔雀鱼对模糊线索的反应基于化学线索所暗示的背景：相对于暴露于对照化学线索的孔雀鱼，暴露于表明捕食的化学线索的孔雀鱼活动减少，这是一种典型的惊吓反应，但对视觉线索的反应灵敏性增加。这是第一项表明一种感官检测到的明确线索会影响动物对其他感官检测到的模糊线索的反应的研究。
