Odours predator faecal, seasonal responses

Seasonal Responses to Predator Faecal Odours in Australian Native Rodents Vary Between Species... 

Rodent visitation rates to odour stations decreased in the presence of predator faeces, compared to blank and novel odours. The response to different predators varied seasonally, and encompassed avoidance of familiar and unfamiliar faecal odours from marsupial and eutherian predators. This study supports the scat avoidance hypothesis (sensu Banks et al. 2003), which predicts that faeces are a useful indicator of predator presence, and I thus argue that, at least in the present context, faecal odours could be a good cue of predator presence for rainforest species. 

---