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Data from: Threat generalisation, not heightened vigilance, characterises antipredator behaviour in urban eastern water dragons
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Data from: Threat generalisation, not heightened vigilance, characterises antipredator behaviour in urban eastern water dragons

Dominique Potvin, Celine Frere and Angela Webb
Figshare
Digital Science
2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.32209431
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RawDataWithScorersTrialID134.84 kBDownloadView
Data Open Access CC BY V4.0
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https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.32209431View
Data Open CC BY V4.0

Abstract

Animal behaviour urban ecology reptiles vigilance multimodal signals eavesdropping
Antipredator behaviours in animals rely on environmental cues that signify dangers, but responses to these cues are known to be context-dependent. Urbanisation in particular has been shown to decrease responsiveness to threats, especially to humans, however how this might interact with cue modality and especially with multi-modal cues, is less known. Our study investigated Eastern Water Dragons (Intellagama lesueurii): a native lizard that proliferates in highly urbanised spaces across eastern Australia. We exposed dragons in regional and highly urbanised parks to threat, non-threat and human signals in three different modes: visual, audio and dual (visual and audio combined). We found that dragons in the most highly urbanised park tended to generalise threat type and cue mode, responding primarily by fleeing to humans and natural threat cues regardless of the signal mode. The peri-urban populations, however, showed much higher variability in responses to threat types, responding by fleeing significantly more often when a visual cue was present compared with audio-only cues. This study demonstrates that antipredator behavioural responses to environmental cues in an urbanised lizard are strongly site‑dependent and do not necessarily conform to patterns commonly reported in urban ecology studies.

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