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Emergence times (X  ̄ € 1 SE) from a refuge of male Lacerta monticola lizards in presence or absence (control) of a tethered female after being approached directly by an experimenter at one of two different approach speeds (slow vs fast) in the mating season 

Emergence times (X ̄ € 1 SE) from a refuge of male Lacerta monticola lizards in presence or absence (control) of a tethered female after being approached directly by an experimenter at one of two different approach speeds (slow vs fast) in the mating season 

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Because time spent in refuge may be costly if prey lose opportunities to forage, fight, or mate, prey allow predators to approach closer before beginning to flee when opportunity costs are high. Because the same opportunity costs may apply to refuge use as to escape, prey should make similar trade-offs between risk of emerging and cost of remaining...

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... a predatory attack, males emerged significantly earlier from the refuge when a female was present than in the control situation (two-way ANOVA, female effect: F =85.55, P <0.0001) ( Fig. 2), and emerged significant- ly earlier when the approach was made at slow speed than when it was at fast speed (speed effect: F 1,76 =19.67, P <0.0001). The interaction between female presence and predator speed was not significant ( F 1,76 =2.71, P =0.10). However, post-hoc tests indicated that, in the control situation, males emerged significantly earlier when the speed was slow (Tukey’s HSD test, P =0.0004), but that emergence times did not differ significantly between approach speeds when a female was present ( P =0.21). The approach speed did not significantly affect the propensity of the male to return and court the female after the predatory attack (16 vs 10 males returned to court after being approached rapidly or slowly, respectively; 2- tailed binomial test P =0.33). Emergence times did not differ significantly between males that returned to court (X ̄ €SE=10.0€1.4 s, n =26) and males that did not return (8.7+1.6 s, n =14) (ANOVA: F 1,38 =0.16, P =0.69). When males returned to court the female, latency to resume courtship after emerging from the refuge did not differ significantly between predator approach speeds (fast: X ̄ €SE=4.7+0.8 s; slow: 3.6+1.0 s; ANOVA: F 1,24 =0.21, P =0.65). When a male bit a female during courtship, it might be considered that the interest of this male in the female was greater than when a male licked the female, but did not attempt to mount her. All males that had bitten the female returned to court her after the attack. However, emergence times did not differ significantly between males that bit and those that did not bite the female (two-way ANOVA, bite effect: F 1,36 =0.26, P =0.31) or between approach speeds (speed effect: F 1,36 =1.09, P =0.30), and the interaction was not significant ( F 1,36 =1.03, P =0.30). Nevertheless, in a separate analysis, emergence times did not differ significantly between approach speeds for males that bit the female (fast: X ̄ €SE=7.8+1.7 s; slow: 7.5+1.4 s; ANOVA: F 1,7 =0.001, P =0.98), but for males that did not bite females, emergence times were significantly longer for fast than slow approaches (fast: X ̄ €SE=12.9+2.2 s; slow: 7.5+1.4 s; ANOVA: F 1,29 = 4.22, P <0.05). The different levels of predation risk posed by a predator approaching at different speeds strongly affected latency to emerge from refuge. Rapid approach by a predator is an important indicator of immediate threat of predation to which prey in many species respond by increasing both the flight-initiation distance (e.g., Dill 1974; Martín and López 1996; Cooper 1997a; but see Bonenfant and Kramer 1996) and latency to emerge from refuge (Cooper 1998; Martín and López 1999c). Many animals, such as some fishes (Endler 1987; Candolin 1997), frogs (Ryan et al. 1982), crabs (Koga et al. 1998), or aquatic insects (Sih et al. 1990), may reduce mating activity under predation risk. However, when there is a trade-off between mating opportunities and predator avoidance, the degree of risk taking should be related to the probability of future mating opportunities (Magnhagen 1991; Clark 1994). Thus, for example, young Gobius niger fishes stopped spawning under predation risk, whereas older individuals readily spawned in a similar situation (Magnhagen 1990). Similarly, in L. monticola, where the mating period is very short, sex and season also affected decisions about refuge use, as indicated by the significant interaction term. During the mating season, males had shorter emergence times than in the postreproductive season. Male L . monticola also have greater general activity levels during the mating season and these seasonal differences cannot be explained by thermal constraints or changes in microhabitat use (Aragón et al. 2001). Thus, when mating opportunities are high, males seem to be less sensitive to predation risk, at least in a situation where the predator has disappeared after an unsuccessful attack. Nevertheless, it may be expected that an increase in risk may force prey to increase emergence times. Thus, in the second experiment during the mating season, when we increased risk by remaining close to the refuge, emergence times were longer and were affected by approach speed in the control treatment, but not in the female treatment. Therefore, variations in emergence times seem to reflect different balances between the costs of losing mating opportunities and the benefit of a diminution of predation risk with time. The absence of any effect of season on refuge use of females may be explained in part by the greater reproductive investment of females (Clark 1994) and by the lack of a relationship between reproductive success and number of matings. Whereas males can increase the number of eggs fertilized by mating with multiple females, females may fertilize all their eggs by mating once. Thus, females should risk less than males. Also, during the mating season, female L . monticola remain relatively stationary, but males must search for females (Martín and Salvador 1997; Aragón et al. 2001). Thus, females do not lose reproductive opportunities by increasing refuge use. Nevertheless, it might be expected that gravid females later in the year have greater latency to emerge than males or nongravid females because their risk of predation is greater in many species due to decreased sprint speed, which impairs their ability to escape (Shine 1980; Cooper et al. 1990; Magnhagen 1991). Gravid lizards are known to modify other aspects of antipredatory behavior and may be predicted to spend more time in refuge unless the increased risk is outweighed by decreases in body temperature while in refuge (Martín and López 1999b, 1999c) at a time when basking may be important for development of offspring. Thus, the concurrence of different ecological pressures may lead females to have similar optimal emergence times in the different phases of their reproductive cycle. When a tethered female was presented, males had even shorter emergence times, and these did not differ between approach speeds. When a female is nearby, staying in the refuge may result in losing opportunities to mate. A similar situation was observed in mate-guarding males of the skink Eumeces laticeps (Cooper 1997a, 1999) and the lacertid lizard Psammodromus algirus (Martín and López 1999a), which allowed closer approach than males found alone, before escaping from potential predators. Because costs of fleeing and refuge use increase for a male that must leave his mate to escape, an optimal decision requires that the approach distance and emergence time decrease even if predation risk increases (Ydenberg and Dill 1986; Martín and López 1999a). A male leaving a female not only loses mating opportunities, but also risks sneaked copulations by subordinate males if they are not able to relocate their mates immediately after the predatory attack. Risk of loss of copulations to rivals may be high in dense populations such as the one we studied (Martín and Salvador 1997; Aragón et al. 2001). Risk of losing mating opportunities due to inability to relocate the female may be especially great for transient females and unfamiliar females (Cooper 1985), in which case our results may indicate maximum effects of female presence. Return by males to court tethered females despite the proximity of the predator indicates the willingness of males to take risks to obtain mating opportunities. The predator’s approach speed influenced neither a male’s decision to return to court, nor the latency to resume courtship after emergence. Furthermore, in males that had already attempted mounting (i.e., those that had bitten the female), the value of the female was probably assessed as greater, and emergence times decreased regardless of approach speed. Taken together, the results of both experiments suggest that males adjust emergence times simultaneously to the degree of predation risk and the cost of lost mating opportunities. Therefore, refuge use in the lizard L . monticola reflects a trade-off between survival and ...

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