Individual Behavior Variation & Animal Personality

Question 1

Classic view of animal behavior

Answer 1

• There is an evolutionary optimum for how animals should behave
• Variation between individuals is ‘noise’ around the optimum

Question 2

Charles Turner and Animal Personality

Answer 2

• Pioneered the idea that animals have distinct, individual ways of behaving
• Demonstrated individual variation, and showed that spiders adapt web-building to their specific environment
• More than a century prior to the field of ‘animal personalities’ taking off, Turner laid the groundwork for it

Question 3

Among-individual vs. within-individual variation

Answer 3

Question 4

Behavioral syndromes

Answer 4

• Individuals of the same population can behave differently from each other
• E.g. if you give an animal a test to see its response to the presence of risk, it may have a consistent response that’s different from another individual’s
• Behavioral syndrome: when an individual expresses similar behaviors across different contexts
• E.g. an individual that is riskier when foraging may also be riskier when competing with other individuals

Question 5

The pace-of-life syndrome hypothesis

Answer 5

Question 6

Fluctuating selection

Answer 6

• The environmental conditions may fluctuate and different personalities/behavioral variants can do better (higher fitness) at times

Example:
- Behavioral trait = exploring away from herd/risk taking
- Environmental condition = rainfall/food abundance
- Whenthere’s more food, it’s better to stay within the herd (taking less risks)
- Individuals with lower risk taking/less exploratory might do better
- When there’s less food, it might be better to leave the herd (taking more risks)
- Individuals with higher risk taking/more exploratory might do better

Question 7

Why not just be plastic all the time in your behavior?

Answer 7

1) The cues that animals are getting to assess the state of the environment might not be strong
- It could just be hard to know what decision to make
- Are predators around? Should you form a group?
- Might be more optimal to just hold your strategy vs. try and constantly figure it out

2) The mechanisms that control these behaviors are sometimes linked
- The neural pathway/hormone levels that make an individual aggressive during hunting and aggressive during the sharing of food might be linked