Sex-based differences in anti-predator response of crickets to chemical cues of a mammalian predator.

Anti-predator behaviors like vigilance or hiding come at the expense of other fitness increasing behaviors such as foraging. To compensate for this trade-off, prey assess predation risk and modify the frequency of anti-predator behaviors according to the likelihood of the threat. In this study, we tested the ability of house crickets () to indirectly assess predation risk via odors from a mammalian predator, Elliot's short-tailed shrew ().