DOI: 10.5061/dryad.tm723
title: Data from: Does moonlight increase predation risk? Meta-analysis reveals divergent responses of nocturnal mammals to lunar cycles

description: 1. The risk of predation strongly affects mammalian population dynamics
 and community interactions. Bright moonlight is widely believed to
 increase predation risk for nocturnal mammals by increasing the ability of
 predators to detect prey, but the potential for moonlight to increase
 detection of predators and the foraging efficiency of prey has largely
 been ignored. Studies have reported highly variable responses to moonlight
 among species, calling into question the assumption that moonlight
 increases risk. 2. Here, we conducted a quantitative meta-analysis
 examining the effects of moonlight on the activity of 59 nocturnal mammal
 species to test the assumption that moonlight increases predation risk. We
 examined patterns of lunarphilia and lunarphobia across species in
 relation to factors such as trophic level, habitat cover preference, and
 visual acuity. 3. Across all species included in the meta-analysis,
 moonlight suppressed activity. The magnitude of suppression was similar to
 the presence of a predator in experimental studies of foraging rodents
 (13.6% and 18.7% suppression, respectively). Contrary to the expectation
 that moonlight increases predation risk for all prey species, however,
 moonlight effects were not clearly related to trophic level and were
 better explained by phylogenetic relatedness, visual acuity, and habitat
 cover. 4. Moonlight increased the activity of prey species that use vision
 as their primary sensory system and suppressed the activity of species
 that primarily use other senses (e.g., olfaction, echolocation), and
 suppression was strongest in open habitat types. Strong taxonomic patterns
 underlay these relationships: moonlight tended to increase primate
 activity, whereas it tended to suppress the activity of rodents,
 lagomorphs, bats, and carnivores. 5. These results indicate that visual
 acuity and habitat cover jointly moderate the effect of moonlight on
 predation risk, whereas trophic position has little effect. While the net
 effect of moonlight appears to increase predation risk for most nocturnal
 mammals, our results highlight the importance of sensory systems and
 phylogenetic history in determining the level of risk.
description: StudiesInformation about studies included in the meta-analysis, including the Study ID used in the files containing data on moonlight effectstable S1 studies new r only.xlsxSpeciesTaxonomic and life history information about species included in the study, including a Species ID used in the files with moonlight response datatable S2 species new r only group size with ID.xlsxGiving up density dataThis table contains data from studies that conducted giving-up density experiments. Predator treatment indicates whether predators were present, absent, or whether predator treatments were pooled. Habitat indicates whether habitat was open, cover, pooled (both), or "simulated" (experiments conducted indoors where artificial habitat was not described; these were excluded from our analyses). Initial seed weight is the amount of seed offered to rodents in grams, and GUD bright and dark are the amounts of seed remaining after foraging trials on full moon and new moon nights, respectively.GUD table for Dryad.xlsxResponses of mammals to moonlightThis file contains data on the response of nocturnal mammals to moonlight. Zr is Fisher's z-transformation of correlation coefficients (r), which was used as the measure of effect size in the meta-analysis. Negative values indicate that moonlight suppressed activity and positive values indicate that moonlight increased activity. "Dendf" = Denominator degrees of freedom. Response type is the type of response to moonlight reported in the study. GUD = giving-up density, activity = time spent active, hunting = time spent hunting, capture/sight = number of sightings or captures, habitat shift = change in habitat use, predation = change in predation rate (negative = higher predation rate with moonlight). Preferred cover: 1=open, 1.5= open/bush, 2=grass, 2.5= open/forest or grass/bush, 3=bush, 3.5=bush/forest, 4=forest.f test query for dryad.xlsx