Fearing the feline
Bonnington, C., Gaston, K.J. & Evans, K.L. 2013. Fearing the feline: domestic cats reduce avian fecundity through trait-mediated indirect effects that increase nest predation by other species. Journal of Applied Ecology 50, 15-24.
Urban areas contain high densities of non-native species, which in the UK include the domestic cat and the grey squirrel. The direct predation effects of domestic cats on prey populations attract intense debate, and such influences of the nest-predatory grey squirrel are receiving increasing attention. In contrast, theory predicts that sublethal and indirect effects are more important, but empirical evidence is currently lacking. We conducted controlled model presentation experiments at active urban blackbird nests to provide the first empirical evidence that quantifies the potential sublethal and indirect effects of predators (domestic cat and grey squirrel) on avian reproductive success. Domestic cat models reduced subsequent parental provisioning rates, a strong indicator of sublethal effects, by one-third relative to a nonpredatory rabbit control. There was no compensatory increase in food load size. Previous experiments demonstrate that this magnitude of reduced food delivery will reduce nestling growth rates by c. 40%. The grey squirrel model induced similar but weaker effects. Following the brief presence of the domestic cat model, subsequent daily nest predation rates, chiefly by magpies and carrion crows, increased by an order of magnitude relative to the squirrel and rabbit models. The intensity of parental nest defence elicited in response to model presentations predicts the probability of such third-party predator predation events, and the domestic cat model generated significant increases in nest defence behaviour. It is imperative that future assessments of the impact of predatory species on avian prey species take lethal trait-mediated indirect effects into account, as so doing will prevent biased estimates of predator effects and facilitate the design of more effective management strategies.