Predation risk is a ubiquitous phenomena across ecological systems. Traditionally, ecologists have focused on the killing of prey; however, more recently the ability of predators to alter the phenotype of prey, via behavioural, physiological, and morphological responses to risk, has become well appreciated. Ecologists have also shown that these phenotypic responses can have costs to prey fitness and alter community dynamics. While much work has gone into the study of predation risk effects, a recent comprehensive review has shown that a general erroneous assumption is that these effects are well understood in wild animals.
Results/Conclusions
In this talk, I will outline the work we have done in snowshoe hares examining how predation risk alters prey phenotype and fitness, has generational effects, and may play a role in their population cycle. I will discuss how our experimental work in captive wild hares provides mechanistic evidence of the field patterns we found in free-living hares.