Dear Colleagues,
My co-authors and I are pleased to announce that a new publication is now
available concerning fitness consequences of behavioural types
('personalities') in grey seals.
"Variation in Female Grey Seal (Halichoerus grypus) Reproductive Performance
Correlates to Proactive-Reactive Behavioural Types."
PLoS ONE 7(11): e49598. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0049598
Twiss SD, Cairns C, Culloch RM, Richards SA, Pomeroy PP (2012)
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0049598
Abstract:
Consistent individual differences (CIDs) in behaviour, indicative of
behavioural types or personalities, have been shown in taxa ranging from
Cnidaria to Mammalia. However, despite numerous theoretical explanations there
remains limited empirical evidence for selective mechanisms that maintain such
variation within natural populations. We examined behavioural types and fitness
proxies in wild female grey seals at the North Rona breeding colony.
Experiments in 2009 and 2010 employed a remotely-controlled vehicle to deliver
a novel auditory stimulus to females to elicit changes in pup-checking
behaviour. Mothers tested twice during lactation exhibited highly repeatable
individual pup-checking rates within and across breeding seasons. Observations
of undisturbed mothers (i.e. experiencing no disturbance from conspecifics or
experimental test) also revealed CIDs in pup-checking behaviour. However, there
was no correlation between an individuals’ pup-checking rate during undisturbed
observations with the rate in response to the auditory test, indicating
plasticity across situations. The extent to which individuals changed rates of
pup-checking from undisturbed to disturbed conditions revealed a continuum of
behavioural types from proactive females, who maintained a similar rate
throughout, to reactive females, who increased pup-checking markedly in
response to the test. Variation in maternal expenditure (daily mass loss rate)
was greater among more reactive mothers than proactive mothers. Consequently
pups of more reactive mothers had more varied growth rates centred around the
long-term population mean. These patterns could not be accounted for by other
measured covariates as behavioural type was unrelated to a mother’s prior
experience, degree of inter-annual site fidelity, physical characteristics of
their pupping habitat, pup sex or pup activity. These findings are consistent
with the hypothesis that variation in behavioural types is maintained by
spatial and temporal environmental variation combined with limits to
phenotype-environment matching.
Best wishes
Sean
_________________________________
Dr. Sean Twiss,
Lecturer in Behavioural Ecology,
School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences,
South Road,
Durham University,
Durham, DH1 3LE,
UK.
E-mail: [email protected]
Web-site:
https://www.dur.ac.uk/biosciences/about/schoolstaff/academicstaff/?id=1132
Blog: http://sealbehaviour.wordpress.com/
Tel: +44 (0)191 334 1350 (office)
Tel: +44 (0)191 334 1247 (lab)
Fax: +44 (0)191 334 1201
_________________________________
_______________________________________________
MARMAM mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/marmam
