School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
Integr Comp Biol. 2020 Aug 1;60(2):497-508. doi: 10.1093/icb/icaa070.
Prey species often modify their foraging and reproductive behaviors to avoid encounters with predators; yet once they are detected, survival depends on out-running, out-maneuvering, or fighting off the predator. Though predation attempts involve at least two individuals-namely, a predator and its prey-studies of escape performance typically measure a single trait (e.g., sprint speed) in the prey species only. Here, we develop a theoretical model in which the likelihood of escape is determined by the prey animal's tactics (i.e., path trajectory) and its acceleration, top speed, agility, and deceleration relative to the performance capabilities of a predator. The model shows that acceleration, top speed, and agility are all important determinants of escape performance, and because speed and agility are biomechanically related to size, smaller prey with higher agility should force larger predators to run along curved paths that do not allow them to use their superior speeds. Our simulations provide clear predictions for the path and speed a prey animal should choose when escaping from predators of different sizes (thus, biomechanical constraints) and could be used to explore the dynamics between predators and prey.
猎物物种通常会改变它们的觅食和繁殖行为，以避免与捕食者相遇；然而，一旦被发现，它们的生存就取决于能否跑得比捕食者更快、能否更灵活地躲避捕食者，或者能否与捕食者进行搏斗。尽管捕食者的捕食行为涉及至少两个个体，即捕食者和它的猎物，但对猎物逃避性能的研究通常只测量猎物物种的单一特征（例如，冲刺速度）。在这里，我们提出了一个理论模型，其中逃避的可能性取决于猎物动物的策略（即路径轨迹）及其相对于捕食者的加速度、最高速度、敏捷性和减速能力。该模型表明，加速度、最高速度和敏捷性都是逃避性能的重要决定因素，而且由于速度和敏捷性与体型的生物力学有关，体型较小但敏捷性较高的猎物应该迫使体型较大的捕食者沿着不允许它们发挥速度优势的弯曲路径奔跑。我们的模拟为猎物动物在逃避不同体型的捕食者时应该选择的路径和速度提供了明确的预测（因此，受生物力学限制），并可用于探索捕食者和猎物之间的动态关系。
