Animal Personalities

Question 1

What is an animal personality

Answer 1

consistency in types of behaviour that individuals exhibit; differences within a population or species

Question 2

What are the 5 aspects of human personality?

Answer 2

openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism (OCEAN)

Question 3

What is openness (aspect of human personality)

Answer 3

It indicates how open-minded a person is. A person with a high level of openness to experience in a personality test enjoys trying new things. They are imaginative, curious, and open-minded

Question 4

What is conscientousness (aspect of human personality)

Answer 4

Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being careful, or diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously. Conscientious people tend to be efficient and organized as opposed to easy-going and disorderly.

Question 5

What is extraversion (aspect of human personality)

Answer 5

Extraversion is a personality trait that broadly describes differences between people in their social interactions, positive emotions, impulsivity, and energy levels. A highly extraverted person is generally thought to be outgoing, energetic, enthusiastic, and positive

Question 6

What is agreeableness (aspect of human personality)

Answer 6

A person with a high level of agreeableness in a personality test is usually warm, friendly, and tactful. They generally have an optimistic view of human nature and get along well with others.

Question 7

What is neuroticism (aspect of human personality)

Answer 7

Individuals who score high on neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody and to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness

Question 8

What is Anthropomorphism?

Answer 8

considering animals as if they are humans, having the same cognitive experience of the world as we do.

Question 9

What are personality differences?

Answer 9

Personality differences are consistent long term behavioural differences among individuals of the same species.

Question 10

What are the five widely recognised animal personality categories?

Answer 10

shy/bold response 
exploration avoidance 
activity 
aggressiveness 
sociability

Question 11

Animal personality trait - what is a shy/bold response like?

Answer 11

shy/bold response to a risky but not novel situation, such as predator presence. Bold = risk takers; fast to take action, approach danger, more active . Shy = avoid risks and unfamiliarity, less active, more careful.

Question 12

Animal personality trait - what is exploration avoidance like?

Answer 12

exploration avoidance an individual’s reaction to novel situations e.g. new habitat, food, or object. May be risky if new object dangerous.

Question 13

Animal personality trait - what is activity like?

Answer 13

activity the general level of activity of an individual. Activity level changes the exploration or bold/shy responses, so activity measured in a non-risky and a non-novel environment

Question 14

Animal personality trait - what is aggresiveness like?

Answer 14

aggressiveness an individual’s agonistic reaction towards conspecifics

Question 15

Animal personality trait - what is sociability like?

Answer 15

sociability an individual’s reaction to the presence or absence of conspecifics (excluding aggressive behaviour). Sociable = seeks the presence of conspecifics, unsociable = avoids conspecifics.

Question 16

How is each animal personality trait a continuum?

Answer 16

Each is a Continuum not a dichotomy - an individual can be any value from very bold to very shy and anything in between.

Question 17

Describe how the bold/shy trait is seen in a specific animal

Answer 17

Bold and shy pumpkinseed fish
Bold individuals take risks – sensation seekers.
Shy individuals avoid risks and unfamiliarity – inhibited behaviour
Caught fish using two methods, designed to get different personalities :
Cage traps – only bold fish would approach them
Seine nets – would catch all fish.
Tagged the fish according to catching method so they could observe behavioural differences.

Question 18

An experiment was performed on Bold and shy pumpkinseed fish on bold/shy animal personality trait. What was the difference between the results in the river and the lab.

Answer 18

In the river:
Bolder fish (trap-caught) were less scared of human observers, ate 3 times as many copepods, and foraged away from the group.
Shy fish (seine-caught) had more parasites, so foraging in different habitat.
In the lab:
Bold fish started feeding sooner after capture than shy fish.
BUT after 25 days housed alone in the lab, they all converged on the same behaviour. Differences between bold and shy fish disappeared.
So personality traits may need social and ecological cues to be sustained

Question 19

Is there a real cost to bold behaviour in animals?

Answer 19

Small fish like sticklebacks and guppies will often swim up to a predator, not run away - predator inspection to assess the danger this predator poses, and to prevent surprise attack
In an experiment on guppies : Predation most on bold and least on shy fish.
So real cost to bold behaviour.

Question 20

If there is a big cost for bold behaviour such as predator inspection, why are there inspectors?

Answer 20

Found inspection behaviour depended on
colour - whether females were watching.
Bright males inspected more than drab ones did, but only when females were watching!
Females chose to mate with bright, inspector males

Question 21

In fish like sticklebacks and guppies, bright fish are the inspectors, were the females choosing them for their brightness or their inspecting?

Answer 21

Experiment done :
Put males into glass tubes with handles to move them.
Move one male to “inspect” predator.
Allow female to choose male.
Whichever male, bright or dull, which was used to inspect predator was the one the females chose.

Question 22

What is the benefit and cost of being a predator inspector in guppies and stickleback fish

Answer 22

Benefit : greater chance of mating

Cost : danger of getting eaten: maintains both strategies in the population.

Question 23

What are the two personality types relating to exploration and response to novel objects?

Answer 23

Explorers, Non Explorers

Question 24

Explorers vs Non Explorers in animals

Answer 24

Explorers: Aggressive, approach novel objects, explore new environments, spend little time in any one area, form and stick to a foraging path.
Non-explorers: Not aggressive, avoid novel objects, no foraging patterns, reluctant to explore but spend longer learning about the new environment.

Question 25

What evidence is there for exploration avoidance being tied to gene?

Answer 25

• Classically tested in “open field” studies – e.g. great tits released into unfamiliar room with perches in it.
• non explorers - flew to nearest ‘tree’
• explorers - explored everywhere readily
• bred extreme explorers and extreme avoiders of great tits through four generations to get high and low curiosity lines.
• Measured time until a bird had visited four artificial “trees“.
• Then measured time before they would to eat next to unknown object (pink panther).
• Good correlation between these tests and the presence or absence of the gene SNP830, which they named the “curiosity gene”.

Question 26

What is the aggression spectrum like in bluebirds?

Answer 26

• While population density was low, aggressive males did best, sure to get territories, and breed at all.
  But as the population increased, non-aggressive males did better, setting up territories close to where they grew up, investing in parental care, and raising more young.
• So aggressive males do better in one circumstance, non-aggressive in another.

Question 27

What is fluctuating selection?

Answer 27

Fluctuating selection happens when either strategy may be best, depending on circumstances.

Question 28

The persistence of more than one personality type can often be explained by what?

Answer 28

Fluctuating selection (bluebirds - populations)

Question 29

Rhesus macaques can show an aggressive personality - the traits which make up the “aggressive” personality type appear to be mediated by what?

Answer 29

Rhesus macaques tested for serotonin activity.
different serotonin levels.
- Low serotonin – both sexes showed impulsive behaviour, risk takers (more dangerous leaps in canopy, went into traps more readily).
- Low serotonin males more aggressive, less social (groomed others less), dispersed younger, higher mortality rate, consorted with females less and mated less often.
- Low serotonin females were more protective of their infants, but suffered higher infant mortality.

Question 30

What does adaptive plasticity mean?

Answer 30

Plasticity means that a trait may vary in how strongly it’s expressed depending on circumstances.
Personality types are genetically based – but (like all genetic traits) they may also be influenced by the environment.

Question 31

Why is Behavioral plasticity essential?

Answer 31

our environment is changing frequently

Question 32

We should expect some personalities to be constant across different conditions, and some to show adaptive plasticity, true or false?

Answer 32

True

Question 33

How does bold/shy behaviour shows adaptive plasticity?

Answer 33

Rainbow trout tested in a laboratory for their response to a novel object
- response recorded and assigned as either bold or shy individuals.
Both bold and shy fish were given experience - watched bold or shy individuals responding to novelty
Control groups of bold and shy fish had neither experience - didn’t change their behaviour.
Bold fish who:
lost their fight,
watched a shy individual
BECAME MORE SHY
Shy fish who:
watched bold demonstrators -
Won their fights,
Lost their fights
BECAME BOLDER

Question 34

How does the predator defence system affects both aggressive and boldness personalities, causing them to be selected together?

Answer 34

Tested sticklebacks two ways:
Aggression: Do they attack an intruder stickleback?
Tested by recording how much the fish approached, chased, and bit a stickleback intruder
Boldness: Do they forage when there is a predator around?
Tested by dipping egret skull into water above foraging fish so they thought there was a predator around
Initially: No correlation between aggressiveness and boldness i.e. aggressive fish no more likely to be bold than non-aggressive fish
Sticklebacks were then subjected to predation until half had been eaten.
Now there was a strong correlation between boldness and aggression – the boldest fish were very aggressive and the shy fish were not.

Question 35

Why does the predator defence system affects both aggressive and boldness personalities, causing them to be selected together?

Answer 35

bold fish use predator-inspection; shy ones reduce predation risk by shoaling. Predator inspectors work alone so can afford to be aggressive. Fish that shoal need to cooperate with neighbours, so can’t be too aggressive to them.

Question 36

How do sleepy lizards differ both in aggression and their degree of sociality?

Answer 36

Aggressive males use wide open-mouth displays showing their blue tongues. Non-aggressive ones are more social than aggressive ones
Aggressive males interacted with other males but with few females
Peaceable males fought less but had more female contacts.
Females actively avoided aggressive males

Question 37

What two approaches are used to see if personalities are adaptive?

Answer 37

Measures of fitness
Cross-species comparisons (providing information about the function of individual genes, cross-species expression comparison can be used to analyze entire sets of genes to understand how system properties are conserved over evolution)