Impact of food availability and predator cues on meadow vole response to social vs. non-social odorants

What is it about?

Prey animals can encounter multiple stressors in their environment that may alter their behavior. Two well studied stressors are the threat of predation and food deprivation. However, these variables can simultaneously occur and may differently alter prey behavior than when each stressor is separately presented. We tested whether the willingness of meadow voles to interact with a potential mate or potential competitor is altered by food deprivation, a mink predator urine, or simultaneous endurance of both stressors. This allowed us to determine whether meadow voles preferred to interact with other meadow voles, regardless of their sex, in an effort to dilute their own risk, avoided other conspecifics, or indicated a preference to mate when experiencing one or both food deprivation and threat of predation. We found that meadow voles do not avoid or spend equal amounts of time with meadow voles of either sex. Instead, the maintain a preference for an opposite sex meadow vole. Although, meadow voles investigate more quickly when experiencing one or both stressors.

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