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The Strategy of Predator Evasion in Response to a Visual Looming Stimulus in Zebrafish (Danio rerio)
- Source :
- Integrative Organismal Biology. 2
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Oxford University Press (OUP), 2020.
-
Abstract
- SynopsisA diversity of animals survive encounters with predators by escaping from a looming visual stimulus. Despite the importance of this behavior, it is generally unclear how visual cues facilitate a prey’s survival from predation. Therefore, the aim of this study was to understand how the visual angle subtended on the eye of the prey by the predator affects the distance of adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) from predators. We performed experiments to measure the threshold visual angle and mathematically modeled the kinematics of predator and prey. We analyzed the responses to the artificial stimulus with a novel approach that calculated relationships between hypothetical values for a threshold-stimulus angle and the latency between stimulus and response. These relationships were verified against the kinematic responses of zebrafish to a live fish predator (Herichthys cyanoguttatus). The predictions of our model suggest that the measured threshold visual angle facilitates escape when the predator’s approach is slower than approximately twice the prey’s escape speed. These results demonstrate the capacity and limits to how the visual angle provides a prey with the means to escape a predator.
- Subjects :
- 0303 health sciences
genetic structures
biology
030310 physiology
Danio
Plant Science
Stimulus (physiology)
biology.organism_classification
Predation
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Looming
Animal Science and Zoology
Visual angle
Neuroscience
Sensory cue
Predator
Zebrafish
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 25174843
- Volume :
- 2
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Integrative Organismal Biology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........53b738566729dabc7102a8ec921d8d06