Is landscape of fear of macroinvertebrate communities a major determinant of mesopredator and prey activity?

Abstract

Macroinvertebrate foragers play an important role on the trophic structures of freshwater environments, and multiple trophic levels occur among macroinvertebrate communities providing very interesting scenarios for testing scientific hypotheses. One of the most intriguing aspect to understand is the role played by the landscape of fear (LOF) on macrobenthos density and activity. With this pilot study we wanted to test if LOF at the macrobenthos community levels plays a role in determining the density of both prey and mesopredators. During two consecutive years, we evaluated, with both day and night surveys, the density of two mesopredator triclad species and of one detritivore prey crustacean species, and we compared them to the number of respective predators occurring in the macroinvertebrate community. LOF levels at the macroinvertebrate community did not reduce the abundance of the target taxa. One of the triclad species was instead positively related to the levels of LOF assessed for it on the basis of the available knowledge. The broad implication of the research is that the abundance of freshwater macroinvertebrates is not mainly linked to the predation risk at the community level, suggesting that also for researches on macrobenthos LOF analyses should take in consideration the role of top predators.