image: This shows a video surveillance system: By continuously monitoring nests using several custom-built video surveillance systems, Zanette et al. could be certain that fear itself reduced the number of offspring mother songbirds produced because the researchers knew for certain that no offspring were directly killed by predators. Filming also revealed that frightened mothers incubated their eggs less and fed their nestlings less often. This image relates to a paper that appeared in the Dec. 9, 2011, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by L.Y. Zanette at University of Western Ontario in London, ON, and colleagues was titled, “Perceived Predation Risk Reduces the Number of Offspring Songbirds Produce per Year.” view more
Credit: Image courtesy of Liana Zanette