TY  - JOUR
A1  - Dammhahn, Melanie
A1  - Lange, Pauline
A1  - Eccard, Jana
T1  - The landscape of fear has individual layers
BT  - an experimental test of among-individual differences in perceived predation risk during foraging
JF  - Oikos
N2  - Perceived predation risk varies in space and time creating a landscape of fear. This key feature of an animal's environment is classically studied as a species-specific property. However, individuals differ in how they solve the tradeoff between safety and reward and may, hence, differ consistently and predictively in perceived predation risk across landscapes. To test this hypothesis, we quantified among-individual differences in boldness and activity and exposed behaviourally phenotyped male bank voles Myodes glareolus individually to two different experimental landscapes of risks in large outdoor enclosures and provided resources as discrete food patches. We manipulated perceived predation risk via vegetation height between 2 and > 30 cm and quantified patch use indirectly via RFID-logging and giving-up densities. We statistically disentangled among-individual differences in microhabitat use from spatially varying perceived risk, i.e. landscape of fear. We found that individuals varied in mean vegetation height of their foraging microhabitats and that this microhabitat selection matched the intrinsic individual differences in perceived risk. As predicted by the patch use model, all individual's perceived higher risks when foraging in lower vegetation. However, individuals differed in their reaction norm slopes of perceived risk to vegetation height, and these differences in slopes were consistent across two different landscapes of risks and resources. We interpret these results as evidence for individual landscapes of fear, which could be predicted by among-individual differences in activity and boldness. Since perceived predation risk affects when and where to forage, among-individual differences in fear responses could act as a mode of intraspecific niche complementarity (i.e. individual niche specialization), help explain behavioural type by environment correlations, and will likely have cascading indirect effects on lower trophic levels.
KW  - activity
KW  - behavioural reaction norm
KW  - giving-up density
KW  - patch use;
KW  - optimal foraging
KW  - personality
KW  - risk allocation
KW  - rodents
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.09124
SN  - 0030-1299
SN  - 1600-0706
VL  - 2022
IS  - 6
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  -