Poison shyness

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A northern quoll. A conditioned aversion to live toads in juvenile northern quolls was successfully established by feeding them a dead toad containing the nausea-inducing chemical thiabendazole. Northern quoll - Dasyurus hallucatus.jpg
A northern quoll. A conditioned aversion to live toads in juvenile northern quolls was successfully established by feeding them a dead toad containing the nausea-inducing chemical thiabendazole.

Poison shyness, also called conditioned food aversion, is the avoidance of a toxic substance by an animal that has previously ingested that substance. Animals learn an association between stimulus characteristics, usually the taste or odor, of a toxic substance and the illness it produces; this allows them to detect and avoid the substance. Poison shyness occurs as an evolutionary adaptation in many animals, most prominently in generalists that feed on many different materials. It is often called bait shyness when it occurs during attempts at pest control of insects and animals. If the pest ingests the poison bait at sublethal doses, it typically detects and avoids the bait, rendering the bait ineffective. [1] [2]

Contents

In nature

For any organism to survive, it must have adaptive mechanisms to avoid toxicosis. In mammals, a variety of behavioral and physiological mechanisms have been identified that allow them to avoid being poisoned. First, there are innate rejection mechanisms such as the rejection of toxic materials that taste bitter. Second, there are other physiologically adaptive responses such as vomiting or alterations in the digestion and processing of toxic materials. Third, there are learned aversions to distinctive foods if ingestion is followed by illness.

A typical experiment tested food aversion learning in squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) and common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus), using several kinds of cues. Both species showed one-trial learning with the visual cues of color and shape, whereas only the marmosets did so with an olfactory cue. Both species showed a tendency for quicker acquisition of the association with visual cues than with the olfactory cue. All individuals from both species were able to remember the significance of the visual cues, color and shape, even after 4 months. However, illness was not necessarily prerequisite for food avoidance learning in these species, for highly concentrated but non-toxic bitter and sour tastes also induced robust taste aversion learning and retention. [3]

The nematode C. elegans was shown to learn and transmit to their offspring avoidance after exposure to non-coding RNA of a bacterial pathogen. [4] [5]

In pest control and conservation

Conditioned taste aversion has been widely used as a method of pest control and conservation. These aversions have been induced in both predator and prey species. [6]

Examples

Rodents: Rats and mice develop bait shyness very readily; it can persist for weeks or months and may be transferred to nontoxic foods of similar types. [7] Thus, if poisons are used for control they must provide no sensation of illness after ingestion. For this purpose, baits containing anticoagulants such as Warfarin were long used; they kill relatively slowly through internal bleeding, which is not associated with ingestion. More recently a highly potent toxin attacking the central nervous system, bromethalin, has been used. Again, with sub-lethal doses of this chemical, the animal cannot learn the association between the odour of the food and its toxicity, thereby preventing poison shyness from developing. [8]

Crows: Conditioned taste aversion has been used to control crow ( Corvus brachyrhynchos ) predation on eggs – a problem for bird sanctuaries and farmers with outdoor chickens. The researchers put a sickness-causing agent in several eggs, painted them green and then placed them where crows could eat them. After eating the tainted eggs, the crows avoided eating green eggs. The crows subsequently avoided eating green eggs whether they contained toxin or not. The crows also continued to eat unpainted and non-toxic chicken eggs. [9] [10] However, another study tested if carrion crow (Corvus corone) predation on little tern (Sterna albifrons) eggs could be decreased by conditioned taste aversion. The study failed to find an effect because the crows were able to distinguish treated eggs during handling, without consuming a significant amount of the illness-inducing compound. [11] House crows are reported to develop bait shyness if quick-acting tocixants are used to reduce their population.

Quoll: In Australia, a critically endangered predator, the northern quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus) is threatened by the invasion of the highly toxic cane toad (Bufo marinus). After toad invasion, quoll populations have become extinct across Northern Australia. A conditioned aversion to live toads in juvenile northern quolls was successfully established by feeding them a dead toad containing a nausea-inducing chemical (thiabendazole). [12]

Multiple predators: When surrogate eggs of the sandhill crane (Grus canadensis) were laced with an illness-producing substance, egg predation decreased in a location which contained multiple potential predators. [13]

Coyotes: Poisoned baits of meat left where coyotes can find them have been used to discourage coyotes from attacking sheep. Here, bait shyness is transferred from the pieces of meat to an aversion for live sheep. [14] Bait shyness may sometimes be location specific and not transferred to different localities. [15]

Livestock protection

Taste aversions have been developed in wolves, coyotes, and other canids to protect livestock and vulnerable wildlife. [16] In 1974, it was reported that coyotes (Canis latrans) learned to avoid hamburger after eating hamburger treated with lithium chloride and could transfer such a drug-induced aversion of LiCl-tainted sheep or rabbit (Sylvilagus sp.) flesh to the corresponding live prey. [17] Olfactory (cologne) and visual (a red collar on the sheep) cues increased the suppression of predation through conditioned learned aversion in coyotes, although this was for a limited duration. [14]

Grazing livestock frequently eat poisonous plants, and death often results. Behavioral adjustments by conditioned taste aversions may protect animals from over-ingestion of toxic plants. Three species of plants with different mechanisms of toxicity were tested for their ability to condition a taste aversion in sheep. Only woody aster conditioned a taste aversion indicating that conditioned aversions to selenium-containing plants help deter consumption of such plants by grazing ruminants. [18]

Crop protection

The cultivation of woody plants (olive trees, grapevines, fruit trees, etc.) can benefit from having animals e.g. sheep and goats, grazing the same area as their faeces nourish the soil thereby reducing the use of herbicides and fertilisers. However, these same animals sometimes eat the crops. Lithium chloride has been used to develop conditioned taste aversion to olive leaves and shoots in sheep and goats. [19]

List of animals

Below is an incomplete list of animals for which poison shyness or bait shyness has been documented in pest control:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cane toad</span> Worlds largest true toad

The cane toad, also known as the giant neotropical toad or marine toad, is a large, terrestrial true toad native to South and mainland Central America, but which has been introduced to various islands throughout Oceania and the Caribbean, as well as Northern Australia. It is a member of the genus Rhinella, which includes many true toad species found throughout Central and South America, but it was formerly assigned to the genus Bufo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cholecalciferol</span> Vitamin D3, a chemical compound

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quoll</span> Genus of marsupial mammals

Quolls are carnivorous marsupials native to Australia and New Guinea. They are primarily nocturnal and spend most of the day in a den. Of the six species of quoll, four are found in Australia and two in New Guinea. Another two species are known from fossil remains in Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits in Queensland. Genetic evidence indicates that quolls evolved around 15 million years ago in the Miocene, and that the ancestors of the six species had all diverged by around four million years ago. The six species vary in weight and size, from 300 g (11 oz) to 7 kg (15 lb). They have brown or black fur and pink noses. They are largely solitary, but come together for a few social interactions such as mating which occurs during the winter season. A female gives birth to up to 30 pups, but the number that can be raised to adulthood is limited by the number of teats (6–7). They have a life span of 1–5 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rodenticide</span> Chemical used to kill rodents

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Conditioned taste aversion occurs when an animal acquires an aversion to the taste of a food that was paired with aversive stimuli. The effect explains that the aversion develops more strongly for stimuli that cause nausea than other stimuli. This is considered an adaptive trait or survival mechanism that enables the organism to avoid poisonous substances before they cause harm. The aversion reduces consuming the same substance in the future, thus avoiding poisoning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aposematism</span> Honest signalling of an animals powerful defences

Aposematism is the advertising by an animal, whether terrestrial or marine, to potential predators that it is not worth attacking or eating. This unprofitability may consist of any defenses which make the prey difficult to kill and eat, such as toxicity, venom, foul taste or smell, sharp spines, or aggressive nature. These advertising signals may take the form of conspicuous coloration, sounds, odours, or other perceivable characteristics. Aposematic signals are beneficial for both predator and prey, since both avoid potential harm.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zinc phosphide</span> Chemical compound

Zinc phosphide (Zn3P2) is an inorganic chemical compound. It is a grey solid, although commercial samples are often dark or even black. It is used as a rodenticide. Zn3P2 is a II-V semiconductor with a direct band gap of 1.5 eV and may have applications in photovoltaic cells. A second compound exists in the zinc-phosphorus system, zinc diphosphide (ZnP2).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Domestic sheep predation</span>

Along with parasites and disease, predation is a threat to sheep health and consequently to the profitability of sheep raising. Sheep have very little ability to defend themselves, even when compared with other prey species kept as livestock. Even if sheep are not directly bitten or survive an attack, they may die from panic or from injuries sustained.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1080 usage in New Zealand</span> Pest control in New Zealand

1080, the brand name given to the synthetic form of sodium fluoroacetate, is used in New Zealand in efforts to control populations of possums, rats, stoat and rabbits, which are invasive species in the New Zealand environment. Although the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment deemed the use of 1080 in New Zealand "effective and safe" in a 2011 re-evaluation and the substance is widely considered to be the most effective tool currently available for controlling possums over large areas, it remains a contentious issue, with the majority of the debate occurring between conservationists and livestock farmers on one side and hunters and animal-rights activists on the other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Common brushtail possum in New Zealand</span> Invasive pest in New Zealand

The common brushtail possum was introduced from Australia to New Zealand, where it has become invasive and a major agricultural and conservation pest.

The cane toad in Australia is regarded as an exemplary case of an invasive species. Australia's relative isolation prior to European colonisation and the Industrial Revolution, both of which dramatically increased traffic and import of novel species, allowed development of a complex, interdepending system of ecology, but one which provided no natural predators for many of the species subsequently introduced. The recent, sudden inundation of foreign species has led to severe breakdowns in Australian ecology, after overwhelming proliferation of a number of introduced species, for which the continent has no efficient natural predators or parasites, and which displace native species; in some cases, these species are physically destructive to habitat, as well. Cane toads have been very successful as an invasive species, having become established in more than 15 countries within the past 150 years. In the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, the Australian government listed the impacts of the cane toad as a "key threatening process".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raptor conservation</span>

Raptor conservation concerns are threats affecting the population viability of birds of prey. Because of their hunting lifestyle, raptors face distinct conservation challenges. As top predators, they are important for healthy ecosystem functioning, and by protecting them many other species are safeguarded. Their extensive habitat requirements make regional conservation strategies necessary for protecting birds of prey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">4'-Aminopropiophenone</span> Chemical compound

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victoria Forest Park</span> Conservation park in New Zealand

Victoria Forest Park, is situated on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. At 2,069 square kilometres (799 sq mi) it is New Zealand's largest forest park. The park is administered by the Department of Conservation (DOC).

Food aversion may refer to:

Native to both South and Central America, Cane toads were introduced to Australia in the 1930s and have since become an invasive species and a threat to the continent's native predators and scavengers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Egg predation</span> Feeding strategy for many animals

Egg predation or ovivory is a feeding strategy in many groups of animals (ovivores) in which they consume eggs. Since a fertilized egg represents a complete organism at one stage of its life cycle, eating an egg is a form of predation, the killing of another organism for food.

References

  1. 1 2 Naheed, G.; Khan, J. (1989). ""Poison shyness" and "bait shyness" developed by wild rats (Rattus rattus L.). I. Methods for eliminating "shyness" caused by barium carbonate poisoning". Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 24 (2): 89–99. doi:10.1016/0168-1591(89)90037-3.
  2. ↑ Clapperton, B.K. (2006). A review of the current knowledge of rodent behaviour in relation to control devices (PDF). Science for Conservation. p. 263. ISBN   0-478-14065-7.
  3. ↑ Laska, M.; Metzker, K. (1998). "Food avoidance learning in squirrel monkeys and common marmosets". Learn. Mem. 5 (3): 193–203. doi:10.1101/lm.5.3.193. PMC   313805 . PMID   10454364.
  4. ↑ "Researchers discover how worms pass knowledge of a pathogen to offspring". phys.org. Retrieved 11 October 2020.
  5. ↑ Kaletsky, Rachel; Moore, Rebecca S.; Vrla, Geoffrey D.; Parsons, Lance R.; Gitai, Zemer; Murphy, Coleen T. (9 September 2020). "C. elegans interprets bacterial non-coding RNAs to learn pathogenic avoidance". Nature. 586 (7829): 445–451. Bibcode:2020Natur.586..445K. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2699-5. ISSN   1476-4687. PMC   8547118 . PMID   32908307.
  6. ↑ Gustavson, C.R. (1977). "Comparative and field aspects of learned food aversions". In L.M. Barker; M.R. Best; M. Domjan (eds.). Learning Mechanisms in Food Selection. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. p. 632.
  7. ↑ Cowleys. "Rats, food, and bait shyness". Archived from the original on February 5, 2013. Retrieved May 22, 2013.
  8. ↑ David E. Stevenson; et al. (1994). "Synthesis of 2-fluoroethyl β-D-galactopyranoside and 2-fluoroethyl 6-0-β-D-galactopyranosyl-β-D-galactopyranoside from lactose using β-D-galactosidase". Carbohydrate Research. 256 (1): 185–188. doi:10.1016/0008-6215(94)84237-X. PMID   8194072.
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  11. ↑ Catry T. & Granadeiro J.P. (2006). "Failure of methiocarb to produce conditioned taste aversion in carrion crows consuming little tern eggs". Waterbirds. 29 (2): 211–214. doi:10.1675/1524-4695(2006)29[211:fomtpc]2.0.co;2. JSTOR   4132571. S2CID   85678374.
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  14. 1 2 3 Sterner, R.T. (1995). Cue enhancement of lithium chloride-induced mutton/sheep aversions in coyotes. Great Plains Wildlife Damage Control Workshop Proceedings. Paper 451.
  15. 1 2 Avery, M. L.; Pavelka, M.A.; Bergman, D.L.; Decker, D.G.; Knittle, C.E. & Linz, G.M. (1995). "Aversive conditioning to reduce raven predation on California least tern eggs" (PDF). Colonial Waterbirds. 18 (2): 131–138. doi:10.2307/1521474. JSTOR   1521474.
  16. ↑ Gustavson, C.R. & Nicolaus, L.K. (1987). "Taste aversion conditioning in wolves, coyotes, and other canids: retrospect and prospect". In H. Frank (ed.). Man and Wolf: Advances, Issues, and Problems in Captive Wolf Research. Junk, Boston: Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 169–203. ISBN   9789061936145.
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  18. ↑ Pfister, J.A.; Gardner, D.R.; Cheney, C.C.; Panter, K.E.; Hall, J.0. (2010). "The capability of several toxic plants to condition taste aversions in sheep". Small Ruminant Research. 90 (1): 114–119. doi:10.1016/j.smallrumres.2010.02.009.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  19. ↑ Manuelian C.L.; Albanell E.; Salama A.A.K. & Caja G. (2010). "Conditioned aversion to olive tree leaves (Olea europaea L.) in goats and sheep". Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 128 (1–4): 45–49. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2010.09.011.
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