Death odour changes movement pattern of a Collembola

We used video‐tracking of individuals of a Collembola, Protaphorura armata, on a clay surface in a petri dish to analyse their movement pattern in an environment with attractive and repellent cues. An area with dead conspecifics was repellent whilst live conspecifics made the area attractive. An area which had been occupied for 24 hours by the predatory mite, Hypoaspis aculeifer, was avoided only if the mite had preyed upon P. armata before it was placed in the area. P. armata lost their looping behaviour, moved faster and more straightened out (decreased turning rate) in the presence of attractive or repellent odours. The resulting net squared displacement was faster than in the control and best described as a correlated random walk. Our results emphasise the importance of considering varying movement pattern in response to environmental cues when predicting dispersal and spatial distribution of an animal.