Meeting Abstract

P3.140  Monday, Jan. 6 15:30  Surviving in the slow lane: speed and maneuverability jointly determine escape success CLEMENTE, C J*; WILSON, R S; The University of Queensland; The University of Queensland r.wilson@uq.edu.au

The interaction between prey and predators is an asymmetric game of life and death: unsuccessful predators go hungry, while unsuccessful prey are killed. As such, predation is considered one of the most pervasive selective pressures affecting individual fitness. But what performance characteristics enable individuals to escape predation? Intuitively, we expect faster individuals to be better at avoiding predation, and studies of animal performance have almost exclusively focused on the role of maximal speeds during escape from predators. However, focusing on maximal performance vastly oversimplifies the dynamics between predators and prey. In reality, an individual’s escape performance is likely to be defined by both their speed and ability to rapidly change directions, or maneuverability. We tested this idea using a custom, tablet-based game that simulated encounters between predator and prey. Ten human subjects were asked to capture simulated on-screen prey by touching them as they moved across the tablet’s screen (>1000 trials each); with prey varying in size, speed and maneuverability. Using these data we were able to quantify the interactive importance of speed and maneuverability for our simulated prey’s ability to escape predation. We found that escape success was determined by both speed and maneuverability – slow prey could escape predation only when highly maneuverable, while prey that was poorly maneuverable could only escape when fast. Our results highlight the importance of including both speed and maneuverability in tests of animal escape performance.