An agouti gnawing on a palm seed Steven Paton
A game of cat and mouse is playing out in Panama鈥檚 rainforests, with large rodents called agoutis using their keen sense of smell to avoid ocelots that hunt them. The fear the rodents have for these predators and the ways it directs their behaviour have ripple effects that could alter the diversity of plants around them.
Most research on this 鈥渆cology of fear鈥 has been centred on temperate ecosystems, says at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama City. To see how the phenomenon could play…
