Behavioural syndromes and social insects: personality at multiple levels (original) (raw)

Integrating animal personality into insect population and community ecology

Current Opinion in Insect Science, 2015

Despite the recent surge of interest in the concept of animal personalities, that is, temporally consistent individual differences in behavior, few studies have integrated intraspecific behavioral variation in population or community ecology. Insects and other arthropods provide ideal model systems to study how intraspecific behavioral variation affects phenomena in ecology. This is due to the fact that arthropods not only are highly amenable to experimental manipulation, but they also allow us to answer general ecological questions on multiple scales of biological organization. Herein, we review recent developments and views on how the framework of animal personality could provide a deeper understanding of classic issues in (1) population ecology (e.g., local adaptation, dispersal, and invasion), (2) community ecology (e.g., food webs and ecosystem engineering), and (3) more insectfocused topics such as metamorphosis and pollination biology.

Collective personalities in honeybee colonies are linked to colony fitness

Animal Behaviour, 2011

animal personality behavioural syndrome collective behaviour colony fitness honeybee Personality differences (i.e. consistent between-individual differences in behaviour) play an important role in the lives of humans and other animals, influencing both their day-to-day actions and their longterm reproductive success. For organisms living in highly structured groups of related individuals, such as colonies of social insects, personalities could also emerge at the group level. However, while numerous recent studies have investigated individual-level personality, the phenomenon of collective personality in animal groups has received little attention. In this paper, we apply the concept of collective personality to colonies of honeybees (Apis mellifera). We document the presence of consistent differences among colonies across a wide range of collective behaviours and demonstrate a link between colony-level personality traits and fitness. The colonies in our study showed consistent behavioural differences in traits such as defensive response, foraging activity and undertaking, and several of these traits were correlated as part of a behavioural syndrome. Furthermore, some of these traits were strongly tied to colony productivity and winter survival. Our results show that the concept of collective personality is applicable to colonies of social insects, and that personality differences among colonies can have important consequences for their long-term survival and reproduction. Applying the concept of personality to close-knit animal groups can provide important insights into the structure of behavioural variability in animal populations and the role that consistent between-group behavioural differences play in the evolution of behaviour. Ó

Larval personality does not predict adult personality in a holometabolous insect

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2017

Although personality (consistent inter-individual differences in behavioural traits across time and/or contexts) and behavioural syndromes (suites of correlated personality traits) have been widely studied in the last decades, the origin and development of these traits during ontogeny are still underexplored. In this context, species undergoing metamorphosis are of special interest. To date, however, the persistence of personality traits has been only little investigated in organisms undergoing complete metamorphosis such as in holometabolous insects, although this kind of studies may provide important insights from a functional point of view. Here, we tested whether the personality and the behavioural syndrome are maintained through metamorphosis in Tenebrio molitor, a holometabolous insect species. We found that personality and behavioural syndrome were present in both larval and adult stages. However, larval personality and behavioural syndrome did not predict adult behaviour. We suggest that the complete reorganization during metamorphosis may have profound effect on the behaviour of the beetles. These results challenge the established common thought that personality should persist along an individual lifespan.

Theoretical Issues Concerning the Evolution and Development of Behavior in Social Insects

Integrative and Comparative Biology, 1972

SYNOPSIS. The major theoretical contributions concerning the behavior of social insects reflect a dichotomous predilection, in that most studies have been approached from either an ontogenetic perspective or from an evolutionary perspective. Wheeler and, to a greater extent, Schneirla have concentrated on an analytic and developmental approach, aimed at explicating how processes of reciprocal stimulation among all members of the colony serve to keep the individuals together and functioning as an integrated unit. Hamilton, by contrast, has emphasized the evolutionary approach, by considering the adaptive value of the genetic mechanism of sex determination that occurs in the insect order Hymenoptera. Attempting to explain the occurrence of any behavior pattern only in terms of its adaptive value is, in a sense, arguing from hindsight, because there is no way of predicting in advance whether any particular adaptive characteristic will indeed evolve. Furthermore, evolution selects for reproductively adaptive outcomes, and not for any particular set of mechanisms and processes that produce the adaptive phenotype. As a result, an understanding of these mechanisms and processes can only come from developmental studies of behavior. It is concluded, therefore, that ontogenetic and phylogenetic approaches are complementary and that both are necessary for a complete understanding of the evolution and development of behavior.

Genetics and Evolution of Social Behavior in Insects

Annual Review of Genetics, 2016

The study of insect social behavior has offered tremendous insight into the molecular mechanisms mediating behavioral and phenotypic plasticity. Genomic applications to the study of eusocial insect species, in particular, have led to several hypotheses for the processes underlying the molecular evolution of behavior. Advances in understanding the genetic control of social organization have also been made, suggesting an important role for supergenes in the evolution of divergent behavioral phenotypes. Intensive study of social phenotypes across species has revealed that behavior and caste are controlled by an interaction between genetic and environmentally mediated effects and, further, that gene expression and regulation mediate plastic responses to environmental signals. However, several key methodological flaws that are hindering progress in the study of insect social behavior remain. After reviewing the current state of knowledge, we outline ongoing challenges in experimental des...

Personality traits are associated with colony productivity in the gypsy ant Aphaenogaster senilis

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 2016

Consistent individual differences in personality traits should be favoured when those traits contribute to consistent individual fitness differences. However, how variations in behaviours are related to productivity remains scarcely explored in social species, particularly in insects. Here, we investigated whether exploratory, boldness and brood rescue behaviours expressed at the colony-level are associated with group productivity that is, colony growth, queen and worker production, and larvae survival in the gypsy ant Aphaenogaster senilis. We found that group-level exploratory activity, boldness, and brood rescue efficiency were highly correlated. Furthermore, both exploratory activity and brood rescue efficiency were significantly consistent across 11 weeks. Finally, differences in brood rescue efficiency correlated positively with colony growth, queen and worker production, and larvae survival. These results show that colony-level personality may be linked with differences in colony life-history strategy, which may promote the emergence and maintenance of personality traits in group-living species.

Social Insects as Model Organisms in Comparative Research on Biological Roots of Social Behavior

2020

ment in response to a wide range of external stimuli including, in particular, signals and cues provided by other individuals (Wilson and Hölldobler 1988; Gordon 1996; Hölldobler and Wilson 2009; bubak et al. 2016; leonHardt et al. 2016). The behavior of each individual is thus mediated not only by internal factors, but also by environmental ones, including, in particular, factors related to the so called social context (social environment of the individual defined largely by the properties of colony/social group in which it lives) (lenoir 1987; szczuka 1996; robinson et al. 1997; Godzińska 2006, 2019; Wnuk and Godzińska 2006; MazurkieWicz et al. 2015; leonHardt et al. 2016). Insect societies also strive to maintain the so called social cohesion allowing them to act as more or less well defined units capable of solving complex problems (for instance, the decision to engage in aggressive conflicts with neighbors; bubak et al. 2016). Social cohesion is based mostly on the phenomenon o...