Safety in numbers: sophisticated vigilance by Allenby's gerbil.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 9159138.
- Also identified by PMC identifier 20844.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
Since 1963, nonlinear predation theory has predicted that, at low population densities, victim species may well be mutualistic rather than competitive. Theory identifies this mutualism as a principal source of dynamic instability in the interaction. Using gerbils and trained barn owls, we conducted the first (to our knowledge) field tests of the theory's prediction of mutualism. The behavior of the gerbils confirms its existence.
Medical subject headings
- Birds
- Gerbillinae
- Models, Biological
- Predatory Behavior