Familiarity Breeds Contempt: Kangaroos Persistently Avoid Areas with Experimentally Deployed Dingo Scents

• Main Authors: Michael H. Parsons, Daniel T. Blumstein
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Canis lupus
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.355.4740

Background: Whether or not animals habituate to repeated exposure to predator scents may depend upon whether there are predators associated with the cues. Understanding the contexts of habituation is theoretically important and has profound implication for the application of predator-based herbivore deterrents. We repeatedly exposed a mixed mob of macropod marsupials to olfactory scents (urine, feces) from a sympatric predator (Canis lupus dingo), along with a control (water). If these predator cues were alarming, we expected that over time, some red kangaroos (Macropus rufous), western grey kangaroos (Macropus fuliginosus) and agile wallabies (Macropus agilis) would elect to not participate in cafeteria trials because the scents provided information about the riskiness of the area. Methodology/Principal Findings: We evaluated the effects of urine and feces independently and expected that urine would elicit a stronger reaction because it contains a broader class of infochemicals (pheromones, kairomones). Finally, we scored non-invasive indicators (flight and alarm stomps) to determine whether fear or altered palatability was responsible for the response. Repeated exposure reduced macropodid foraging on food associated with 40 ml of dingo urine, X = 986.7563.97 g food remained as compared to the tap water control, X = 209.06107.0 g (P,0.001). Macropodids fled more when encountering a urine treatment, X = 4.5062.08 flights, as compared to the control, X = 0 flights (P,0.001). There was no difference in effect between urine or feces treatments (P.0.5). Macropodids did not habituate to repeated exposure