Tracing the battle: Role of mucus trails in information warfare between predator snail and prey limpet

Predator-prey interactions have long been recognized as important selective forces in the evolution and maintenance of multiple traits in both predators and prey. Certain animal species leave information intentionally or unintentionally, in the form of urine, feces, feeding traces, and chemical trails, even after they have moved. This residual information, left behind by animals, has the potential to affect predation efficiency. However, information warfare—the use of information between predator and prey, in which predators exploit prey cues to increase predation efficiency, while prey exploit predator cues to reduce it—remains largely unexplored, especially in the context of residual information. Marine gastropods leave a mucus trail that contains individual information as they crawl. In this study, we investigated the existence of information warfare between the predator snail Reishia clavigera and the prey limpet Siphonaria sirius through mucus trails. We observed the responses of p..., , , # Raw data: Tracing the Battle: Role of Mucus Trails in Information Warfare between Predator Snail and Prey Limpet

---

## Description of the data and file structure

The raw data in Data_JAE_250926y.w.xlsx consist of predator snail and prey limpet trajectories collected in two laboratory experiments. Four datasets are included:

Data 1: distance, displacement, looping, and heading change in Experiment 1
Data 2: probability of reaching producer endpoints in Experiment 1
Data 3: distance, displacement, looping, and heading change in Experiments 1 and 2
Data 4: probability of reaching producer endpoints in Experiments 1 and 2

### Data 1 variables
date: date of data collection
ID: experiment ID on that date
col_date: date animals were collected
sp.provider: species of the producer (Predator snail or Prey limpet)
sp.user: species of the responder (Predator snail or Prey limpet)
Role: role of the individual (Provider = producer, User = responder)
Actual.distance: accumulated distance trave..., ,