Interacting effects of short-term and long-term noise exposure on antipredator behaviour in sand gobies

In today's marine habitats, anthropogenic noise is widespread in space and time, affecting aquatic animal communities. Short-term exposure to known affect vital behaviours, such as the ability evade predators. However, long-term pollution may lead differences short-term responses between naïve experienced animals. We investigated interaction sound on antipredator response of free-ranging sand gobies, Pomatoschistus minutus. tested effects boat playback a simulated predator strike areas across range low high disturbance levels. Exposure did not startle response, time frozen or latency gobies stimulus. individuals exposed were absent from experimental area for shorter periods after than silent control. Moreover, noisy habitats also stopped avoiding under control conditions. These changes point decreased magnitude function interacting short- longer-term levels disturbance. Thus, prey species alter their behaviour ways that can potentially higher mortality individual prey. This could ultimately have implications at level food web.