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Cheetahs modify their prey handling behavior depending on risks from top predators

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Anne Hilborn at Virginia Tech
Anne Hilborn
Nathalie Pettorelli at Zoological Society of London
Nathalie Pettorelli
Tim Caro
Tim Caro
Tim Caro
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Marcella J. Kelly at Virginia Tech
Marcella J. Kelly
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Abstract and Figures

While handling large kills, mesocarnivores are particularly vulnerable to kleptoparasitism and predation from larger predators. We used 35 years of observational data on cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) hunts in Serengeti National Park to investigate whether cheetahs’ prey handling behavior varied in response to threats from lions (Panthera leo) and spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta). Male cheetahs and single females, whose main threat was kleptoparasitism, minimized time on the kill by being less vigilant and eating quickly, thereby shortening their handling times. Mothers with cubs showed a different strategy that prioritized vigilance over speed of eating, which increased time spent handling prey. Vigilance allowed them to minimize the risk of their cubs being killed while giving cubs the time they need to eat at the carcass. Flexible behavioral strategies that minimize individual risk while handling prey likely allow mesocarnivores to coexist with numerous and widespread apex predators. Significance statement Medium-sized carnivores like cheetahs face the challenge of coexisting with larger carnivores that steal their kills and kill their cubs. We investigated how cheetahs modify their behavior on kills to minimize risks from larger predators. Using 35 years of data on 400+ cheetah hunts across 159 individuals, we found that cheetahs without cubs whose primary danger is having their kill stolen spent little time engaged in vigilance and instead ate quickly, reducing the risk of theft. Mothers with cubs, however, took a slower approach and were more vigilant while handling prey to avoid cub predation by lions and spotted hyenas. The ability of cheetahs to modify their prey handling behavior depending on the type of risk they face likely allows them to coexist with numerous larger carnivores.
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  • Dec 2023
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Article
  • Jan 2013
Despite often violent fluctuations in nature, species extinction is rare. California red scale, a potentially devastating pest of citrus, has been suppressed for fifty years in California to extremely low yet stable densities by its controlling parasitoid. Some larch budmoth populations undergo extreme cycles; others never cycle. In Consumer-Resource Dynamics, William Murdoch, Cherie Briggs, and Roger Nisbet use these and numerous other biological examples to lay the groundwork for a unifying theory applicable to predator-prey, parasitoid-host, and other consumer-resource interactions. Throughout, the focus is on how the properties of real organisms affect population dynamics. The core of the book synthesizes and extends the authors' own models involving insect parasitoids and their hosts, and explores in depth how consumer species compete for a dynamic resource. The emerging general consumer-resource theory accounts for how consumers respond to differences among individuals in the resource population. From here the authors move to other models of consumer-resource dynamics and population dynamics in general. Consideration of empirical examples, key concepts, and a necessary review of simple models is followed by examination of spatial processes affecting dynamics, and of implications for biological control of pest organisms. The book establishes the coherence and broad applicability of consumer-resource theory and connects it to single-species dynamics. It closes by stressing the theory's value as a hierarchy of models that allows both generality and testability in the field.
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The Components of Arthropod Predation: II. The Predator Rate of Increase
Article
  • Feb 1976
(1) The death rate imposed by the predator population on the prey population is, inter alia, linked to the rate at which individual predators locate and consume prey, and hence to the rate of increase of the predator population. The overall rate of increase will depend, we argue, on three main components. These are (i) the duration of each predator instar, (ii) survival rates within instars and (iii) the fecundity of the adults. (2) Because the number of prey eaten per predator is defined by a complex surface involving prey density, predator density and their relative distributions, expressions for the components of the predator rate of increase are derived, for simplicity, as a slice through this complex surface in the prey-density plain for a single predator. (3) The effects of prey density on the development rates of particular predator instars and fecundity of adult predators are defined from arguments based on simple energetic considerations. The predicted relationships are in general agreement with experimental data reported from a wide range of predatory arthropods. (4) The effects of prey density on survival within particular predator instars are defined from arguments based on the assumption that mortality through food shortage will occur at some characteristic mean ingestion rate (mu I), with deaths in the population as a whole being approximately normally distributed about this mean. Again, agreement between models and experimental data is satisfactory. (5) Unfortunately, although these relationships have been documented for a wide variety of organisms, concentration on one species and all its components has not occurred. This represents a major gap in experimental ecological work.
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