BEHAVIOURALRESPONSESBY RED-BACKEDSALAMANDERS TO CONSPECIFIC AND HETEROSPECIFIC CUES by

Chemical cues released from injured prey are thought to indicate the proximity of a preda-tor or predation event, and therefore, an area of elevated predation risk. Prey often avoid chemical cues released from injured heterospecics, but there is little evidence to determine whether this is due to homologous cues among phylogeneticallyrelated species, or avoidance of injured syntopic species that experience predation from the same predators. The purpose of this study was to examine the response of terrestrial red-backed salamanders (Plethodon cinereus) to chemical cues from non-injuredand injuredmembers of their prey guild that vary in their relatedness to P. cinereus. In the laboratory, P. cinereus avoided chemical cues from injured conspeci cs, injured and non-injured slimy salamanders (P. glutinosus), and injured confamilial dusky salamanders (Desmognathus ochrophaeus). Red-backed salamanders did not avoid rinses from non-injured conspeci cs and dusky salamanders, or cues from injured and non-injured earthworms (Lumbricus sp.), a more distantly related prey guild member. These results cannot be fully explained by either phylogenetic relatedness (among plethod-ontid salamanders) or prey guild membership alone. We suggest that a combination of these factors, and perhaps others, likely in uenced the evolution of heterospecic alarm cue avoid-ance in the red-backed salamander. 2) Corresponding author’