Organisms can gain information about predation risks from their parents, their own personal experience, and their conspecifics and adjust their behavior to alleviate these risks. These different sources of information can, however, provide conflicting information due to spatial and temporal variation of the environment. This raises the question of how these cues are integrated to produce adaptive antipredator behavior. We investigated how common lizards (Zootoca vivipara) adjust the use of conspecific cues about predation risk depending on whether the information is maternally or personally acquired. We experimentally manipulated the presence of predator scent in gestating mothers and their offspring in a full-crossed design. We then tested the consequences for social information use by monitoring offspring social response to conspecifics previously exposed to predator cues or not. Lizards were more attracted to the scent of conspecifics having experienced predation cues when they had themselves no personal information about predation risk. In contrast, they were more repulsed by conspecific scent when they had personally obtained information about predation risk. However, the addition of maternal information about predation risk canceled out this interactive effect between personal and social information: lizards were slightly more attracted to conspecific scent when these two sources of information about predation risk were in agreement. A chemical analysis of lizard scent revealed that exposure to predator cues modified the chemical composition of lizard scents, a change that might underlie lizards’ use of social information. Our results highlight the importance of considering multiple sources of information while studying antipredator defenses.

中文翻译：

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母体和个人信息介导了关于捕食风险的社会线索的使用

生物体可以从它们的父母、它们自己的个人经历和它们的同类那里获得关于捕食风险的信息，并调整它们的行为来减轻这些风险。然而，由于环境的空间和时间变化，这些不同的信息源可以提供相互矛盾的信息。这就提出了如何整合这些线索以产生适应性反捕食者行为的问题。我们调查了常见的蜥蜴 ( Zootoca vivipara) 根据信息是母体获得还是个人获得，调整有关捕食风险的同种线索的使用。我们以全交叉设计实验性地操纵了怀孕母亲及其后代中捕食者气味的存在。然后，我们通过监测后代对先前暴露于捕食者线索的同种动物的社会反应来测试社会信息使用的后果。当蜥蜴自己没有关于捕食风险的个人信息时，它们更容易被经历过捕食线索的同种动物的气味所吸引。相比之下，当他们亲自获得有关捕食风险的信息时，他们更排斥同种气味。然而，关于捕食风险的母体信息的添加抵消了个人和社会信息之间的这种交互作用：当这两个关于捕食风险的信息来源一致时，蜥蜴更容易被同种气味所吸引。对蜥蜴气味的化学分析表明，暴露于捕食者的线索会改变蜥蜴气味的化学成分，这一变化可能是蜥蜴利用社会信息的基础。我们的结果强调了在研究反捕食者防御时考虑多种信息来源的重要性。