Abstract

Prey animals are often faced with a Hobson's choice: risk starvation or risk predation. Individuals capable of optimizing this trade-off through the use of context specific predator avoidance behaviour should be at a selective advantage. Food availability and social status have been shown to exert a strong influence on this trade-off, however, it remains unknown if these factors interact (i.e., do dominants and subordinates vary their behavioural decisions based on food availability). The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of food availability and social status, as well as their interaction, on the individual behaviour by young-of-the-year rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in response to perceived predation threats. Pairs of dominants and subordinates were assigned to either low, intermediate or high food availability treatments and exposed to either conspecific alarm cue (predation threat) or distilled water (no threat). The results suggest that an individual's response to a perceived predation threat is indeed dependent upon both social status and food availability.