Catherine Price

Modeling habituation of introduced predators to unrewarding bird odors for conservation of ground-nesting shorebirds

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 06-12-2019

DOI: 10.1002/EAP.1814

Abstract: Foraging mammalian predators face a myriad of odors from potential prey. To be efficient, they must focus on rewarding odors while ignoring consistently unrewarding ones. This may be exploited as a nonlethal conservation tool if predators can be deceived into ignoring odors of vulnerable secondary prey. To explore critical design components and assess the potential gains to prey survival of this technique, we created an in idual-based model that simulated the hunting behavior of three introduced mammalian predators on one of their secondary prey (a migratory shorebird) in the South Island of New Zealand. Within this model, we heuristically assessed the outcome of habituating the predators to human-deployed unrewarding bird odors before the bird's arrival at their breeding grounds, i.e., the predators were "primed." Using known home range sizes and probabilities of predators interacting with food lures, our model suggests that wide-ranging predators should encounter a relatively large number of odor points (between 10 and 115) during 27 d of priming when odor is deployed within high-resolution grids (100-150 m). Using this information, we then modeled the effect of different habituation curves (exponential and sigmoidal) on the probability of predators depredating shorebird nests. Our results show that important gains in nest survival can be achieved regardless of the shape of the habituation curve, but particularly if predators are fast olfactory learners (exponential curve), and even if some level of dishabituation occurs after prey become available. Predictions from our model can inform the amount and pattern in which olfactory stimuli need to be deployed in the field to optimize encounters by predators, and the relative gains that can be expected from reduced predation pressure on secondary prey under different scenarios of predator learning. Habituating predators to odors of threatened secondary prey may have particular efficacy as a conservation tool in areas where lethal predator control is not possible or ethical, or where even low predator densities can be detrimental to prey survival. Our approach is also relevant for determining interaction probabilities for devices other than odor points, such as bait stations and camera traps.

Leveraging Motivations, Personality, and Sensory Cues for Vertebrate Pest Management

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 11-2020

DOI: 10.1016/J.TREE.2020.07.007

Exploiting olfactory learning in alien rats to protect birds' eggs

Publisher: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Date: 15-10-2012

DOI: 10.1073/PNAS.1210981109

Abstract: Predators must ignore unhelpful background “noise” within information-rich environments and focus on useful cues of prey activity to forage efficiently. Learning to disregard unrewarding cues should happen quickly, weakening future interest in the cue. Prey odor, which is rapidly investigated by predators, may be particularly appropriate for testing whether consistently unrewarded cues are ignored, and whether such behavior can be exploited to benefit prey. Using wild free-ranging populations of black rats, Rattus rattus , an alien predator of global concern, we tested whether the application of bird-nesting odors before the introduction of artificial nests (odor preexposure), enhanced the survival of birds eggs (prey) compared with areas where prey and nesting odors were introduced concurrently. In areas where predators had encountered prey odor before prey being available, the subsequently introduced eggs showed 62% greater survival than in areas where prey and odor were introduced together. We suggest that black rats preexposed to prey odor learned to ignore the unrewarding cue, leading to a significant improvement in prey survival that held for the 7-d monitoring period. Exploiting rapid learning that underpins foraging decisions by manipulating sensory contexts offers a nonlethal, but effective approach to reducing undesirable predatory impacts. Techniques based on olfactory preexposure may provide prey with protection during critical periods of vulnerability, such as immediately following a prey reintroduction. These results also highlight the potential benefits to species conservation to be gained from a greater understanding of the cognitive mechanisms driving alien predator behavior within ecological contexts.

The ethics of intervening in animal behaviour for conservation

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 09-2023

DOI: 10.1016/J.TREE.2023.04.011

Outfoxing the fox: Effect of prey odor on fox behavior in a pastoral landscape

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 22-10-2021

DOI: 10.1111/CSP2.516

Abstract: Invasive mammalian predators have had a devastating effect on native species globally. The European red fox ( Vulpes vulpes ) is one such species where it has been introduced in Australia. A novel but unexplored tactic to reduce the impact of mammalian predators is the use of unrewarded prey odors to undermine the effectiveness of olfactory hunting behavior. To test the viability of unrewarded prey odors in an applied setting we investigated how foxes responded to the odors of three different prey species. We used the odors of two locally extinct native Australian marsupials the eastern quoll (a smaller carnivore) and eastern bettong (a fungivore), and the European rabbit, an introduced herbivore. Conducting our research over a period of 3 weeks in a pastoral environment in South‐eastern Australia, we used video observations of foxes' behaviors, as they encountered the different odors. We found a reduction in the number of fox visits to bettong odors in the third week. In contrast, we observed a sustained number of visits to rabbit odors. Foxes also spent more time investigating rabbit odors and displayed longer durations of vigilance behavior at quoll odors. Our results support the hypothesis that the exposure of wild foxes to unrewarded odors of novel prey species can reduce their interest in these odors, which might translate to a reduction in predation pressure. Our results also suggest, however, that olfactory pre‐exposure may not be as effective at reducing fox interest in a competitor species' odor.

Deadly intentions: Naïve introduced foxes show rapid attraction to odour cues of an unfamiliar native prey

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 15-07-2016

DOI: 10.1038/SREP30078

Abstract: Introduced predators have caused declines and extinctions of native species worldwide, seemingly able to find and hunt new, unfamiliar prey from the time of their introduction. Yet, just as native species are often naïve to introduced predators, in theory, introduced predators should initially be naïve in their response to novel native prey. Here we examine the response of free-living introduced red foxes ( Vulpes vulpes ) to their first encounter with the odour cues of a novel native prey, the long-nosed bandicoot ( Perameles nasuta ). Despite no experience with bandicoots at the study site, foxes were significantly more interested in bandicoot odour compared to untreated controls and to a co-evolved prey, the black rat ( Rattus rattus ). So what gives introduced predators a novelty advantage over native prey? Such neophilia towards novel potential food sources carries little costs, however naïve native prey often lack analogous neophobic responses towards novel predators, possibly because predator avoidance is so costly. We propose that this nexus between the costs and benefits of responding to novel information is different for alien predators and native prey, giving alien predators a novelty advantage over native prey. This may explain why some introduced predators have rapid and devastating impacts on native fauna.

Leaving home but nowhere to go: lessons learnt from almost two decades of Bush Stone-curlew Burhinus grallarius monitoring on the Central Coast of NSW

Publisher: Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales

Date: 12-2018

DOI: 10.7882/AZ.2018.049

Systematic reviews and maps as tools for applying behavioral ecology to management and policy

Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)

Date: 08-10-2018

DOI: 10.1093/BEHECO/ARY130

Landscapes within landscapes: A parasite utilizes different ecological niches on the host landscapes of two host species

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 05-2019

DOI: 10.1016/J.ACTATROPICA.2019.02.022

Abstract: Parasites are distributed across populations of hosts, but also across microhabitats on or inside hosts: together the host population distribution and "host landscape" distribution comprise a part of the ecological niche of a parasite. In this paper we examine how a generalist parasite, the tick Ixodes holocyclus, is distributed at both the host population and host landscape scales in two species of host (Perameles nasuta and Rattus rattus) that co-occur. We anaesthetized wildlife to locate ticks from five generalized host body regions we then analysed the distribution of ticks among the populations of hosts (aggregation) and the distribution of ticks among the available host body regions as niches. Ixodes holocyclus is more aggregated in the R. rattus population. At the host landscape scale, I. holocyclus's utilized niche includes the entire surface of P. nasuta equally, while the niche on R. rattus is focused on the head. Differences in tick aggregation between host species may reflect tick habitat suitability at the host landscape scale, as well as differences in ecological and evolutionary histories. By exploring the distribution of parasites at multiple scales, including host landscapes, we can better understand the complex ecology of parasites.

Leaf odour cues enable non‐random foraging by mammalian herbivores

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 09-10-2017

DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.12748

Abstract: Searching for food is the first critical stage of foraging, and search efficiency is enhanced when foragers use cues from foods they seek. Yet we know little about food cues used by one major group of mammals, the herbivores, a highly interactive component of most ecosystems. How herbivores forage and what disrupts this process, both have significant ecological and evolutionary consequences beyond the animals themselves. Our aim was to investigate how free-ranging mammalian herbivores exploit leaf odour cues to find food plants amongst a natural and complex vegetation community. Our study system comprised the native "deer equivalent" of eastern Australian forests, the sw wallaby Wallabia bicolor, and seedlings of Eucalyptus, the foundation tree genus in these ecosystems. We quantified how foraging wallabies responded to odour cues from plants manipulated in several ways: varying the quantity of visually concealed leaves, comparing damaged vs. undamaged leaves, and whole plants vs. those with suppressed cues. The rate of discovery of leaves by wallabies increased with odour cue magnitude, yet animals were extremely sensitive to even a tiny odour source of just a few leaves. Whole seedlings were discovered faster if their leaves were damaged. Wallabies found whole seedlings and those with suppressed visual cues equally rapidly, day and night. Seedlings with very little odour were discovered mainly by day, as nocturnal foraging success was severely disrupted. This study shows how leaf odour attracts mammalian herbivores to food plants, enabling non-random search for even tiny odour sources. As damaged leaves enhanced discovery, we suggest that the benefit of attracting natural enemies to invertebrate herbivores feeding on plants (potential "cry for help") may be offset by a cost-increased browsing by mammalian herbivores. This cost should be incorporated into multi-trophic plant-animal studies. Finally, the breakdown in capacity to find plants at night suggests substantial but unrecognized foraging costs to herbivores when abiotic factors, such as cold temperatures or pollution, reduce or degrade plant odour cues. We predict that an increasingly polluted world will alter the foraging success of mammalian herbivores, with significant ecological ramifications given that browsing can shape ecosystems.

A new conceptual and quantitative approach to exploring and defining potential open-access olfactory information.

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 13-09-2022

DOI: 10.1111/NPH.18432

Abstract: All organisms emit odour, providing 'open-access' olfactory information for any receiver with the right sensory apparatus. Characterizing open-access information emitted by groups of organisms, such as plant species, provides the means to answer significant questions about ecological interactions and their evolution. We present a new conceptual framework defining information reliability and a practical method to characterize and recover information from amongst olfactory noise. We quantified odour emissions from two tree species, one focal group and one outgroup, to demonstrate our approach using two new R statistical functions. We explore the consequences of relaxing or tightening criteria defining information and, from thousands of odour combinations, we identify and quantify those few likely to be informative. Our method uses core general principles characterizing information while incorporating knowledge of how receivers detect and discriminate odours. We can now map information in consistency-precision reliability space, explore the concept of information, and test information-noise boundaries, and between cues and signals.

Olfactory misinformation: creating “fake news” to reduce problem foraging by wildlife

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 21-06-2022

DOI: 10.1002/FEE.2534

Abstract: Finding food is a key motivator of animal behavior and underpins an increasing number of conservation and wildlife management challenges. Introduced predators threaten many vulnerable native species, and some native predators are problematic for declining prey species. Likewise, browsing by native and introduced herbivores threatens endangered plant species, undermines habitat restoration efforts, and alters plant communities. Mammalian predators and herbivores use olfactory information to forage efficiently, pursuing cues that are useful and ignoring those that are not. Here, we present the theoretical basis for why olfactory misinformation should alter foraging decisions and provide compelling evidence that supports the theory. Drawing on this theory and evidence of the success of olfactory misinformation where it has been applied to date, we propose that there is enormous scope for its application more broadly in conservation and wildlife management. Such an approach offers a robust behavioral alternative for protecting valued plants and prey species that are otherwise vulnerable to foraging mammals.

The Olfactory Landscape Concept: A Key Source of Past, Present, and Future Information Driving Animal Movement and Decision-making

Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)

Date: 06-07-2022

DOI: 10.1093/BIOSCI/BIAC039

Abstract: Odor is everywhere, emitted across the landscape from predators, prey, decaying carcasses, conspecifics, vegetation, surface water, and smoke. Many animals exploit odor to find food, avoid threats, and attract or judge potential mates. Here, we focus on odor in terrestrial ecosystems to introduce the concept of an olfactory landscape: real-time dynamic olfactory contours reflecting the patchy distribution of resources and risks, providing a key source of information used by many animals in their movement and decision-making. Incorporating the olfactory landscape into current frameworks of movement ecology and animal behavior will provide a mechanistic link to help answer significant questions about where, why, and when many animals move, and how they do so efficiently in both space and time. By understanding how animals use the olfactory landscape to make crucial decisions affecting their fitness, we can then manipulate the landscape to modify ecological interactions and, ultimately, ecosystem consequences of these interactions.

Habitat augmentation for introduced urban wildlife: The use of piles of railway sleepers as refuge for introduced black rats Rattus rattus

Publisher: Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales

Date: 09-2018

DOI: 10.7882/AZ.2017.029

Food quality and conspicuousness shape improvements in olfactory discrimination by mice

Publisher: The Royal Society

Date: 25-01-2017

DOI: 10.1098/RSPB.2016.2629

Abstract: How animals locate nutritious but camouflaged prey items with increasing accuracy is not well understood. Olfactory foraging is common in vertebrates and the nutritional desirability of food should influence the salience of odour cues. We used signal detection analysis to test the effect of nutritional value relative to the conspicuousness of food patches on rates of foraging improvement of wild house mice Mus musculus searching for buried food (preferred peanuts or non-preferred barley). Olfactory cues were arranged to make food patches conspicuous or difficult to distinguish using a novel form of olfactory camouflage. Regardless of food type or abundance, mice searching for conspicuous food patches performed significantly better than mice searching for camouflaged patches. However, food type influenced how mice responded to different levels of conspicuousness. Mice searching for peanuts improved by similar rates regardless of whether food was easy or hard to find, but mice searching for barley showed significant differences, improving rapidly when food was conspicuous but declining in accuracy when food was camouflaged. Our results demonstrate a fundamental tenet of olfactory foraging that nutritional desirability influences rates of improvement in odour discrimination, enabling nutritious but camouflaged prey to be located with increasing efficiency.

Olfactory misinformation reduces wheat seed loss caused by rodent pests

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 22-05-2023

DOI: 10.1038/S41893-023-01127-3

Abstract: Alternatives to pesticides are urgently needed to meet sustainable agriculture goals but few options are available for many systems. Here we test how a form of olfactory misinformation on a newly sown wheat crop can prevent wild house mice ( Mus musculus ) from finding buried seeds. Our misinformation tactic, odour camouflage, reduced seed loss by %, providing a simple, non-lethal and ethical way to reduce seed damage and avoid rodenticide use.

What evidence exists on the effectiveness of different types of olfactory lures as attractants for invasive mammalian predators? A systematic map protocol

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 06-2019

DOI: 10.1186/S13750-019-0156-4

Examining the efficacy of anti-predator training for increasing survival in conservation translocations: a systematic review protocol

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 06-2019

DOI: 10.1186/S13750-019-0154-6

Research Priorities from Animal Behaviour for Maximising Conservation Progress

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 12-2016

DOI: 10.1016/J.TREE.2016.09.001

Abstract: Poor communication between academic researchers and wildlife managers limits conservation progress and innovation. As a result, input from overlapping fields, such as animal behaviour, is underused in conservation management despite its demonstrated utility as a conservation tool and countless papers advocating its use. Communication and collaboration across these two disciplines are unlikely to improve without clearly identified management needs and demonstrable impacts of behavioural-based conservation management. To facilitate this process, a team of wildlife managers and animal behaviour researchers conducted a research prioritisation exercise, identifying 50 key questions that have great potential to resolve critical conservation and management problems. The resulting agenda highlights the ersity and extent of advances that both fields could achieve through collaboration.

Isolation and characterisation of microsatellite loci in the bush stone-curlew (burhinus grallarius), a declining australian bird

Publisher: CSIRO Publishing

Date: 2013

DOI: 10.1071/ZO13059

Abstract: The bush stone-curlew (Burhinus grallarius Latham), a ground-nesting nocturnal bird, is endangered in southern Australia due to habitat modification and introduced predators. To provide tools for conservation, ecological and behavioural studies, we isolated variable microsatellite repeat sequences and designed primers for PCR lification in this species. Primer pairs were developed and levels of ersity were assessed for eight microsatellite loci, including one locus linked to the gene encoding Microtubule-Associated Protein 2, a protein important for behavioural imprinting in birds, and one sex-linked locus. Isolated loci contained allelic ersity of between 5 and 17 alleles.

Native predators can learn new prey cues to overcome naivete and hunt novel alien prey

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 08-2023

DOI: 10.1016/J.BIOCON.2023.110211

Increased olfactory search costs change foraging behaviour in an alien mustelid: a precursor to prey switching?

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 26-05-2016

DOI: 10.1007/S00442-016-3660-Z

Abstract: If generalist predators are to hunt efficiently, they must track the changing costs and benefits of multiple prey types. Decisions to switch from hunting preferred prey to alternate prey have been assumed to be driven by decreasing availability of preferred prey, with less regard for accessibility of alternate prey. Olfactory cues from prey provide information about prey availability and its location, and are exploited by many predators to reduce search costs. We show that stoats Mustela erminea, an alien olfactory predator in New Zealand, are sensitive to the search costs of hunting both their preferred rodent prey (mice) and a less desirable alternate prey (locust). We manipulated search costs for stoats using a novel form of olfactory camouflage of both prey, and found that stoats altered their foraging strategy depending on whether mice were camouflaged or conspicuous, but only when locusts were also camouflaged. Stoats gave up foraging four times more often when both prey were camouflaged, compared to when mice were conspicuous and locusts camouflaged. There were no differences in the foraging strategies used to hunt camouflaged or conspicuous mice when locusts were easy to find. Consequently, camouflaged mice survived longer than conspicuous mice when locusts were hard to find, but not when locusts were easy to find. Our results demonstrate that predators can integrate search costs from multiple prey types when making foraging decisions. Manipulating olfactory search costs to alter foraging strategies offers new methods for understanding the factors that foreshadow prey switching.

Olfactory misinformation provides refuge to palatable plants from mammalian browsing

Publisher: Research Square Platform LLC

Date: 21-09-2023

DOI: 10.21203/RS.3.RS-3347150/V1

Systematic evidence synthesis as part of a larger process: a response to comments on Berger-Tal et al.

Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)

Date: 04-12-2018

DOI: 10.1093/BEHECO/ARY163

Predators are attracted to the olfactory signals of prey

Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)

Date: 30-09-2010

DOI: 10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0013114

Invasive mammalian predators habituate to and generalize avian prey cues: a mechanism for conserving native prey

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 03-08-2020

DOI: 10.1002/EAP.2200

Abstract: Invasive mammalian predators can cause the decline and extinction of vulnerable native species. Many invasive mammalian predators are dietary generalists that hunt a variety of prey. These predators often rely upon olfaction when foraging, particularly at night. Little is understood about how prey odor cues are used to inform foraging decisions. Prey cues can vary spatially and temporally in their association with prey and can either reveal the location of prey or lead to unsuccessful foraging. Here we examine how two wild‐caught invasive mammalian bird predator species (European hedgehogs Erinaceus europaeus and ferrets Mustela putorius furo ) respond to unrewarded bird odors over successive exposures, first demonstrating that the odors are perceptually different using house mice ( Mus musculus ) as a biological olfactometer. We aim to test if introduced predators categorize odor cues of similar prey together, a tactic that could increase foraging efficiency. We exposed house mice to the odors using a standard habituation/dishabituation test in a laboratory setting, and wild‐caught European hedgehogs and ferrets in an outdoor enclosure using a similar procedure. Mice discriminated among all bird odors presented, showing more interest in chicken odor than quail or gull odor. Both predator species showed a decline in interest toward unrewarded prey odor (i.e., habituation), but only ferrets generalized their response from one unrewarded bird odor to another bird odor. Hedgehog responses to unrewarded bird odors were highly variable between in iduals. Taken together, our results reveal interspecific and intraspecific differences in response to prey odors, which we argue are a consequence of different diet breadth, life and evolutionary histories, and the conditions in each experiment. Generalization of prey odors may have enabled some species of invasive predators to efficiently hunt a range of intraguild prey species, for ex le, ground‐nesting shorebirds. Olfactory manipulation of predators may be a useful conservation tool for threatened prey if it reduces the conspicuousness of vulnerable prey.

A mechanistic understanding of prebaiting to improve interaction with wildlife management devices

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 10-03-2021

DOI: 10.1002/PS.6343

Abstract: Prebaiting is a technique involving early deployment of ‘unarmed’ devices (e.g. baits and traps) to increase efficacy of wildlife management. Although commonly used, the mechanisms by which prebaiting works are poorly understood. We propose three mechanisms by which prebaiting may increase device interaction probabilities (1) overcoming neophobia towards novel devices, (2) a ‘trickle in’ effect increasing time for animals to encounter devices and (3) social information transfer about rewards associated with devices. We conducted a survey of 100 articles to understand how prebaiting has been used. We then tested our proposed prebaiting mechanisms using a global pest (black rats, Rattus rattus ) examining how uniquely marked free‐living rats responded to a common yet novel monitoring technique (tracking tunnels). No studies in our dataset tested how prebaiting functioned. Most studies (61%) did not propose a mechanism for prebaiting, but overcoming neophobia was most commonly mentioned. We only found partial support for the overcoming neophobia hypothesis in our field test. We found the dominant mechanism operating in our system to be the ‘trickle in’ effect with the proportion of in iduals visiting the device increasing over time. We found no support for social information transfer as a mechanism of prebaiting. Applying a mechanistic understanding of how prebaiting functions will improve the efficacy of management devices. Our results suggest that prebaiting allows time for more rats to encounter a device, hence surveys in our system would benefit from long prebaiting periods. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry.

Misinformation tactics protect rare birds from problem predators

Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Date: 12-03-2021

DOI: 10.1126/SCIADV.ABE4164

Abstract: We show that olfactory misinformation increases nest survival of rare birds as effectively as lethal control of predators.

A mask R-CNN based automatic assessment system for nail psoriasis severity

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 04-2022

DOI: 10.1016/J.COMPBIOMED.2022.105300

Abstract: Nail psoriasis significantly impacts the quality of life in patients with psoriasis, which affects approximately 2-3% of the population worldwide. Disease severity measures are essential in guiding treatment and evaluation of therapeutic efficacy. However, due to subsidy, convenience and low costs of health care in Taiwan, doctor usually needs to manage nearly hundreds of patients in single outpatient clinic, leading to difficulty in performing complex assessment tools. For instance, Nail Psoriasis Severity index (NAPSI) is used by dermatologists to measure the severity of nail psoriasis in clinical trials, but its calculation is quite time-consuming, which h ers its application in daily clinical practice. Therefore, we developed a simple, fast and automatic system for the assessment of nail psoriasis severity by constructing a standard photography capturing system combined with utilizing one of the deep learning architectures, mask R-CNN. This system not only assist doctors in capturing signs of disease and normal skin, but also able to extract features without pre-processing of image data. Expectantly, the system could help dermatologists make accurate diagnosis, assessment as well as provide precise treatment decision more efficiently.

Hair type, intake, and detection method influence Rhodamine B detectability

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 18-09-2013

DOI: 10.1002/JWMG.459

University Of Sydney

Location: Australia

View Organisation

Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220101316

Start Date: 07-2022

End Date: 02-2026

Amount: $368,174.00

Funder: Australian Research Council