Diversity of risk assessment patterns in antipredator behavior of goitered gazelles.

In predator-prey encounters, risk assessment and threat identification are particularly important aspects in the prey's decision in how, when and where to escape. Previous studies devoted to this topic investigated mostly factors influencing risk perception by a prey animal and on its decision when to flee; however, information on the diversity of risk assessment displays is still very limited. Therefore in this paper, I considered various display types of risk assessments and the circumstances under which they were performed. I found that the contagious effect of alarm behavior among conspecifics and the investigative approach toward the threat were the types of risk assessment found most often, while mobbing was observed least often. Every type of risk assessment had a specific usage according to the sort of suspicious object and the prey's display circumstances. Adult females with few exceptions demonstrated threat assessment behavior most often, while adult males displayed assessment behavior less frequently; in all cases, sub-adults and fawns showed these patterns significantly less often than adults. Antipredator strategy of adult females likely differed from males. Adult females had the highest response and sensitivity to any kind of potential threat and a high rate of vigilance, including risk assessment, likely related to the responsibility of rearing young. In contrast, adult males were busy mostly with social vigilance and monitored conspecifics more than predators. Adolescents and fawns showed the lowest rate of risk assessment, most likely because information on the potential risk of threat was not as useful to them since they did not have enough experience to recognize and avoid predators; instead of relying on their own experience, younger animals followed and repeated the behaviors of adults. As a result, young of many ungulate species typically have the highest losses from predation and adult females the lowest, with adult male deaths in between. This regularity was also likely true for the risk assessment behaviors of goitered gazelles in my study.

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