Naiveté is not forever: responses of a vulnerable native rodent to its long term alien predators

Alien predators have wreaked havoc on isolated endemic and island fauna worldwide, a phenomenon generally attributed to prey naiveté, or a failure to display effective antipredator behaviour due to a lack of experience. While the failure to recognise and/or respond to a novel predator has devastating impacts in the short term after predators are introduced, few studies have asked whether medium to long term experience with alien predators enables native species to overcome their naiveté. In Australia, introduced dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and cats (Felis catus) have caused rapid extinctions and declines in small-medium sized native mammals since they were introduced ~150 years ago. However, native wildlife have had ~4000 years experience with another dog – the dingo (Canis lupus dingo). Native bush rats (Rattus fuscipes) remain common despite predation from these predators. We predicted that prior experience with dingoes would mean that bush rats recognise and ...