Are vigilance and flight initiation distance correlated in yellow-bellied marmots?

Abstract

Behavioral syndromes are widespread and can have important ecological consequences, since correlations between distinct behaviors shape how animals can respond to changing pressures and can limit behavioral plasticity. Various antipredator behaviors have been identified within behavioral syndromes in many species, and therefore studying the structure of potential behavioral syndromes is important for understanding an animal’s overall behavioral response to predators. This study focused on two antipredator behaviors in yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer): time allocation to vigilance during foraging, which represents an individual’s baseline level of wariness, and flight initiation distance (FID), which quantifies the flightiness of an animal in response to a predator. We estimated the correlation between these traits by fitting bivariate model on data collected over 18 years and found a modest correlation between vigilance and FID at the individual level.

Knowledge graph centered on Are vigilance and flight initiation distance corre with 18 nodes and 80 connections. Top connected: Marmota, Yellow-bellied Marmot, Spiders, Do individual differences influence flight initiat, focal animal sampling (Sciuridae).

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References (22)

5 in Knowledge Commons, 17 external