Predators drive selection for adaptive plasticity in prey defense behavior

Plasticity to reduce activity is a common way prey evade predators. However, by reducing activity prey often experience lower individual growth rates because they encounter their own prey less often. To overcome this cost, natural selection should not simply favor individuals generating stronger plasticity to reduce activity rates, but also selection to resume activity once the threat of predation subsides. If such plasticity is adaptive, it should vary under environmental conditions that generate stronger selection for greater plasticity, such as predator density. Using a mesocosm experiment and observational study with a damselfly-prey/fish-predator system we show that fish predation exerts selection for greater plasticity in activity rates of damselflies. Such selection allows damselfly activity levels to initially decrease and then rebound when the threat of predation dissipates, potentially helping to ameliorate a hypothesized growth penalty from activity reductions. We also find t..., This dataset was collected from a mesocosm study paired with a field study.
In the mesocosm study, we mixed damselfly larve collected from 3 lakes in Arkansas to ensure large phenotypic variation. We randomly assigned individuals to a caged-predator or free-ranging predator treatment. The caged-predator treatment represents behavioral responses of damselflies to predator cues without direct mortality by the predator, whereas the free-ranging predator treatment represents predator selection as they were free to swim about and consume damselflies. This experiment was conducted at an outdoor mesocosm facility at the University of Arkansas. Following the duration of the experiment, we collected the remaining damselflies in each treatment and performed behavioral assays to quantify predator-induced plasticity. Head positions of damselflies were marked on an underlying grid (1cm x 1cm) every 20 minutes for a total of 3 hours. Activity rate was then calcuted by measuring the linear distances b..., , # Predators drive selection for adaptive plasticity in prey defense behavior

This dataset contains data collected from a mesocosm experiment and a field study investigating damselfly prey behavioral plasticity to fish predators.

## Description of the data and file structure

The data are contained in .csv files. The file \"fall2020_mesocosm_predselection_ms.csv\" contains activity rates of individual damselflies that survived our mesocosm experiment. This file was used for treatment-level analyses. Treatment (caged- or free-fish), tank ID, and cage ID are also included. Each tank contained 3 cages. Headwidths for individuals are included as well and were estimated in ImageJ software from photos of the damselflies taken during the assays. The column \"nf1.act.mm\" contains activity rates during the initial behavioral assay without fish predator kairomones, \"f.act.mm\" contains activity rates from the assay with fish kairomones, and \"nf2.act.mm\" contains activity rates from the assay conduct...