The progression of hunting decision-making in lions

Predation is a multistage process shaped by behavioral decisions that unfold from rest to pursuit, with each stage shaped by interacting environmental, social, and prey-related factors. Decomposing this sequence offers a mechanistic understanding of predator–prey interactions, as drivers of success may vary or even oppose one another across stages. However, empirical integration of fine-scale behavioral transitions across the full predation sequence in free-ranging large carnivores remains limited by data resolution. In my PhD, I collected high-resolution thermal drone data to investigate the stepwise decision-making process of African lions, from inactivity to movement, prey search, encounter, and eventual hunting attempts. This data provides unprecedented real-time insights into fine-scale behavioral transitions and predator–prey interactions, but poses analytical challenges, particularly when trying to coherently integrate prey occurrences and lion movement for state classification and transition modelling. This talk will give a brief introduction to the conceptual framework and data structure of my research, and then focus on an open discussion about analytical approaches suitable for identifying environmental and prey-related factors influencing the shift from prey-searching to active pursuit.