Predators around: should I stay or should I go? Mum knows it. Role of maternal effect in an adaptive dispersal decision.

• Applicant: Dr. Oscar Brusa
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions
• Term: from 2014 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 251606414

Animal dispersal is the movement of individuals away from their previous living habitat. This apparently simple phenomenon has important consequences over a series of key ecological processes and, ultimately, on species persistence. Indeed, by means of dispersal, animals find suitable habitats within the modern heterogeneous and changeable landscapes. Dispersal is an individual decision, over the balance between benefits and costs of moving, which varies in relation to individual phenotype and ecological context. Facing the same local conditions individuals will disperse differently in order to maximize their survival and reproductive success.The evaluation of vital environmental factors, such as predation risk, may prove difficult, particularly in species in which dispersal is carried out mostly by juveniles. To this respect, the predator cues received by the mother during relevant reproductive events represent a vital source of information for the newborns. Therefore, natural selection should favour females that are able to use such information on the natal environment to fine-tune the dispersal tendencies of their offspring. This maternal regulation may occur, a fortiori, in viviparous vertebrates, because of the close contact between mother and fetus during pregnancy. Predator-induced maternal effect would thus influence offspring dispersal decisions, facilitating their adaptation to the local predatory environment. This project aims at clarifying, if pregnant common lizards (Zootoca vivipara) use predation risk cues to influence the dispersal tendencies and overall phenotype of their offspring. I will test these hypotheses, 1) manipulating perceived predation risk in both mothers and offspring and 2) measuring offspring dispersal, growth, survival and reproduction in a highly realistic semi-natural setting. This is the first empirical study of maternal influence over offspring adaptive predation-dependent dispersal in a vertebrate.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: France
• Host: Dr. Julien Cote
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Jean Clobert