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Abstract
Natural habitats contain dynamic elements, such as varying local illumination: can such features mitigate the salience of organism movement? Dynamic illumination is particularly prevalent in coral reefs, where patterns known as ‘water caustics’ play chaotically in the shallows. In behavioural experiments with a wild-caught reef fish, the Picasso triggerfish (Rhinecanthus aculeatus), we demonstrate that the presence of dynamic water caustics negatively affects the detection of moving prey items, as measured by attack latency, relative to static water caustic controls. Manipulating two further features of water caustics (sharpness and scale) implies that the masking effect should be most effective in shallow water: scenes with fine scale and sharp water caustics induce the longest attack latencies. Due to the direct impact upon foraging efficiency, we expect the presence of dynamic water caustics to influence decisions about habitat choice and foraging by wild prey and predators.
Original language | English |
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Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Volume | 287 |
Issue number | 1924 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2020 |
Research Groups and Themes
- Cognitive Science
- Visual Perception
Keywords
- dynamic illumination
- foraging
- motion camouflage
- signal masking
- water caustics
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Dive into the research topics of 'Underwater caustics disrupt prey detection by a reef fish'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
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The Camouflage machine: optimising patterns for camouflage and visibility
Scott-Samuel, N. E. (Principal Investigator), Cuthill, I. C. (Co-Investigator), Baddeley, R. J. (Co-Investigator), Talas, L. (Researcher) & Fennell, J. G. (Researcher)
1/06/15 → 31/05/18
Project: Research
Datasets
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Underwater caustics disrupt prey detection by a reef fish
Matchette, S. (Creator), Cuthill, I. (Creator), Cheney, K. (Creator), Marshall, J. (Creator) & Scott-Samuel, N. (Creator), Dryad, 16 Mar 2020
DOI: 10.5061/dryad.zpc866t59, http://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.zpc866t59 and one more link, https://zenodo.org/record/4984685 (show fewer)
Dataset