Top-predator carrion is scary: Fight-and-flight responses of wild boars to wolf carcasses

• Published in: Ecology and Evolution
• Main Authors: Redondo Gómez, Daniel, Moleón Páiz, Marcos
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2023
• Subjects: Antipredator responses; Canis lupus; Landscape of fear; Predation risk; Predator avoidance; Prey behavior; gray wolf
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10481/81697; https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9911

This study was funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and “ERDF A way of making Europe” through project PID2021- 128952NB-I00. DRG was funded by a predoctoral grant from the Junta de Andalucía (PREDOC_00262). MM was partly sup- ported by a research contract Ramón y Cajal from the MINECO (RYC-2015-19231) Predation risk largely constrains prey behavior. However, whether predators may be scary also after death remains unexplored. Here, we describe the “fight-and-flight” responses of a prey, the wild boar (Sus scrofa), to carcasses of (a) its main predator, the gray wolf (Canis lupus) and (b) a carnivore that very rarely kills wild boars, the red fox (Vulpes vulpes), in the western Alps (Italy). We recorded the behavior of wild boars at 10 wolf and 9 fox carcass sites. We found eight “fight-and-flight” responses toward wolf carcasses, and none toward fox carcasses. Our results suggest that car- nivore carcasses may indeed be scary; fear responses toward them are dependent on the species to which the carcass belongs; and animals approaching the carcasses are feared mainly when the latter are relatively fresh. This emphasizes the multiple and complex roles that carrion plays in the landscape of fear and opens exciting ecological, epidemiological, and evolutionary research avenues. Junta de Andalucia PREDOC_00262 Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain (MICINN) Instituto de Salud Carlos III Spanish Government PID2021-128952NB-I00 RYC-2015-19231