Both prey and predator features predict the individual predation risk and survival of schooling prey
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Germany
- Zukunftskolleg, University of Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), Spain
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, United States
- School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, Australia
- Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, United States
- eScience Institute, University of Washington, United States
- Center for an Informed Public, University of Washington, United States
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Germany
Figures
Figure 1
High-resolution tracking of predator attacks.
Cropped image from a sample video trial moments before the attack with key tracking data overlaid. Shiners are coloured yellow to blue based on their distance from the group centroid. Red target …
Figure 2
Detailed attack characteristics.
(A) Pike attack trajectories that successfully resulted in prey capture (n=88). Data are shown from the time of attack (strike initiation), with the predator positioned at the origin pointing north. …
Figure 3
Prey features considered in the multi-model inference approach.
(A–L) Schooling shiners and pike (black) at the time of attack, with the shiners coloured based on the range of features used in our multi-model inference approach. Visualisations show data for a …
Figure 4
Predictors of the likelihood to be targeted - prey-focused approach.
(A) Relative feature weights based on multi-model inference ranked from highest (top) to lowest (bottom), revealing three key predictive features emerged (for acronyms, see Table 1). (B–D) Top three …
Figure 5
Predictors of likelihood to be targeted - predator-focused approach.
(A) Relative feature weights based on multi-model inference and ranked from highest (top) to lowest (bottom), revealing three key predictive features emerged. (B–D) Top three features affecting the …
Figure 6
Predictors of Predator Attack Success.
(A) Relative feature weights based on multi-model inference and ranked from highest (top) to lowest (bottom). (B–C) The two key features that best predicted predator attack success: targeted …
Appendix 1—figure 1
Time series of a randomly selected pike attack.
(A and B) Speed and acceleration curves (based on smoothed data) of the pike (purple) and shiners (grey; targeted shiner in orange). Time is relative to the automatically quantified time of attack. …
Appendix 2—figure 1
Effects of repeated pike exposure on relative spatial positioning of the shiners and pike.
(A) Heatmaps of the relative position of all shiners to the pike up to strike for all first attempts relative to exposure, with the 4th-6th exposure (panel 4) being grouped due to their smaller …
Appendix 3—figure 1
Model results from multi-model inference on likelihood to be targeted.
Results from multi-model inference investigating which individual is targeted for attack using the prey-focused (A) and predator-focused (B) approach. Panels show relative evidence weight for the …
Appendix 3—figure 2
Model results from multi-model inference on predation attack success.
Panel shows relative evidence weight for the top 15 models. For acronyms, see Table 1 in the main text.
Tables
Table 1
Description of features used in our multi-model inference approach for predicting which individuals were targeted and survived attacks.
For a visualisation of the features, see Figure 3.
| Feature | Acronym | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Body length | BL | Shiner’s body length (cm) |
| Centre distance | CD | Shiner’s distance from the group centroid (cm) |
| Centre-edge position | CDrank | Shiner’s CD ranked and scaled from 0 (most central) to 1 (least central) |
| Convex hull position | Hpos | Whether a shiner was part of the group hull or not |
| Inter-individual distance | IID | Shiner’s median distance to all of its group mates |
| Local misalignment | LMis | Difference in orientation angle (in degrees) between the shiner and its group mates within 10 cm |
| Voronoi area | VA | Area (cm2) around a shiner closest to that individual and not another individual, limited to the boundaries of the testing arena (log-transformed) |
| Limited domain of danger | LDOD | VA limited to a max radius of 10 cm from the shiner (log-transformed) |
| Front-back centre distance | FBCD | Shiners’ distance from the group centroid in the plane of the group average orientation (positive values indicate in front of the centroid) |
| Front-back position | FBrank | Shiners’ FBCD ranked and scaled from 1 (front) to 0 (back) |
| Visual weighted degree | WDeg | The proportion of each shiner’s vision occupied by conspecifics |
| Distance to the pike | PD | Shiner’s distance to the head centroid of the pike (cm) |
| Angle to the pike | PA | Shiner’s position relative to the pike facing north (degrees), 0° being straight in front and 180° directly behind |
| Orientation to the pike | PO | The relative orientation (head to tail angle) of the shiner to that of the pike |
| Pike vision of shiner | PVS | Pike’s field of view occupied by the individual shiner (deg) |
| Target max speed | TMS | Targeted shiner’s maximum speed (cm/s) (smoothed data) |
| Target max acceleration | TMA | Targeted shiner’s maximum acceleration (m/s2) (smoothed data) |
| Target max turn | TMT | Targeted shiner’s maximum orientation change (deg) in the 0.5 s until the time of attack |
| Pike max acceleration | PMA | Pike’s maximum acceleration (m/s2) (smoothed data) |
