Data from: Australian native mammals recognise and respond to alien predators: a meta-analysis ...

• Main Authors: Banks, Peter B., Carthey, Alexandra J. R., Bytheway, Jenna P.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2018
• Subjects: predator recognition; red fox; prey naïveté; alien species; Feral cat; Canis lupus
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.d317663; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.d317663

Prey naiveté is a failure to recognise novel predators and thought to cause exaggerated impacts of alien predators on native wildlife. Yet there is equivocal evidence in the literature for native prey naiveté towards aliens. To address this, we conducted a meta-analysis of Australian mammal responses to native and alien predators. Australia has the world’s worst record of extinction and declines of native mammals, largely due to two alien predators introduced some 150 years ago: the feral cat, Felis catus, and European red fox, Vulpes vulpes. Analysis of 94 responses to predator cues show that Australian mammals consistently recognise alien foxes as a predation threat, possibly because of thousands of years experience with another canid predator, the dingo, Canis lupus dingo. We also found consistent recogntion responses towards feral cats, however in 4 of the 7 studies available, these responses were of risk-taking behaviour rather than antipredator behaviour. Our results suggest that a simple failure to ... : Australian mammal naiveté meta-analysis dataAustralian mammal naiveté meta-analysis dataMeta Analysis Data for Dryad.xlsb ...