Data from: Infanticide as a male reproductive strategy has a nutritive risk effect in brown bears

• Main Authors: Steyaert, Sam M. J. G., Reusch, Christine, Brunberg, Sven, Swenson, Jon E., Hackländer, Klaus, Zedrosser, Andreas
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: brown bear; risk effects; segregation; sexually selected infanticide; Ursus arctos
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10255/dryad.54074; https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.h359g

Behavioral strategies to reduce predation can incur costs (i.e. risk effects). A common strategy to avoid predation is spatiotemporal avoidance of predators, in which prey typically trade optimal resources for safety. Analogous with predator-prey theory, risk effects should also arise in species with sexually selected infanticide (SSI), in which females with dependent offspring avoid infanticidal males. In brown bears (Ursus arctos), SSI is common and explains spatiotemporal segregation among reproductive classes. Here, we show that females with cubs-of-the-year had lower quality diets than conspecifics during the SSI high-risk period, the mating season. After the mating season, their diets were of similar quality to diets of their conspecifics. Our results suggest a nutritive risk effect of SSI, in which females with cubs-of-the-year alter their resource selection and trade optimal resources for offspring safety. We suggest that risk effects can be widespread among species with SSI, and that these risk effects can add to the female costs of reproduction.