Intra- and interspecific avoidance of areas marked with skin extract from brook sticklebacks (Culaea inconstans) in a natural habitat

The detection of a chemical alarm pheromone may allow receivers to avoid areas where a predator has captured the prey's conspecifics. We marked minnow traps with either brook stickleback (Culaea inconstans) skin extract or a control of distilled water and tested whether sticklebacks avoided the skin extract marked traps in a natural habitat. Significantly more sticklebacks were captured in traps marked with control water, thereby demonstrating avoidance of conspecific skin extract. The stickleback captured in traps marked with conspecific extract were significantly smaller than those captured in traps marked with control water, implicating ontogenetic factors (i.e., experience or physiological development) in the development of the response. We also captured significantly fewer finescale dace (Chrosomus neogaeus) and fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) in traps marked with skin extract. These data suggest that dace and minnows may benefit by avoiding areas where predators have recently captured sticklebacks.