Behavioural Plasticity Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Behavioral variation has been documented both between and within populations in a variety of traits. Many of these behavioral traits are phenotypically plastic and are conditional on the early environment an animal experiences, yet despite this the role of the environment in generating variation in boldness is not well understood. Here we investigate the importance of early and recent experience of temporal unpredictability in food supply on the behavior of a species of freshwater fish, the Trinidadian guppy Poecilia reticulata. We predict that individuals that experience temporally unpredictable food supplies will engage in more risky behavior than those experiencing a predictable food supply and find evidence to support this. Fish with early experience of unpredictable environments are generally bolder and more exploratory than fish reared in predictable environments, exploring a significantly greater proportion of a novel maze and spending less time in a refuge during the trial. Individuals with early experience of unpredictability also spent significantly less time associating with conspecifics in a shoaling tendency assay, again suggesting that they are bolder than guppies reared in predictable conditions. These findings suggest that early experience is important in shaping exploratory and shoaling behavior in this species and that unpredictability in early life can influence boldness in guppies.

- by Marie-laure Bégout
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- Evolutionary Biology, Zoology, Early Modern History, Ecology

Black sparrowhawks (Accipiter melanoleucus) recently colonised the Cape Peninsula, South Africa, where the species faces competition for their nest sites from Egyptian geese (Alopochen aegyptiaca) which frequently usurp black sparrowhawk nests. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that multiple nest building by black sparrowhawks is a strategy to cope with this competitor, based on a 14-year long term data set. Two main results support the hypothesis: first, the numbers of intact nests per breeding season in black sparrowhawk territories increased as levels of geese interactions increased, specifically when usurpation occurred. Usurpation occurred significantly more often at nests later in the season, and may provide a further explanation for the advancement of the black sparrowhawk breeding season towards earlier breeding attempts which results in an overall extension of the breeding period (over 9 months) that has been found in our study population. Second, nest usurpation had a ...

- by juan pablo rey millan
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- Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, Game Theory, Reproduction

Background: The expression of animal personality is indicated by patterns of consistency in individual behaviour. Often, the differences exhibited between individuals are consistent across situations. However, between some situations, this can be biased by variable levels of individual plasticity. The interaction between individual plasticity and animal personality can be illustrated by examining situation-sensitive personality traits such as boldness (i.e. risk-taking and exploration tendency). For the weakly electric fish Gnathonemus petersii, light condition is a major factor influencing behaviour. Adapted to navigate in low-light conditions, this species chooses to be more active in dark environments where risk from visual predators is lower. However, G. petersii also exhibit individual differences in their degree of behavioural change from light to dark. The present study, therefore, aims to examine if an increase of motivation to explore in the safety of the dark, not only affects mean levels of boldness, but also the variation between individuals, as a result of differences in individual plasticity.

During outbreaks, locust swarms can contain millions of insects travelling thousands of kilometers while devastating vegetation and crops. Such large-scale spatial organization is preceded locally by a dramatic density-dependent phenotypic transition in multiple traits. Behaviourally, low-density 'solitarious' individuals avoid contact with one another; above a critical local density, they undergo a rapid behavioural transition to the 'gregarious phase' whereby they exhibit mutual attraction. Although proximate causes of this phase polyphenism have been widely studied, the ultimate driving factors remain unclear. Using an individualbased evolutionary model, we reveal that cannibalism, a striking feature of locust ecology, could lead to the evolution of density-dependent behavioural phase-change in juvenile locusts. We show that this behavioural strategy minimizes risk associated with cannibalistic interactions and may account for the empirically observed persistence of locust groups during outbreaks. Our results provide a parsimonious explanation for the evolution of behavioural plasticity in locusts.

- by Vishwesha Guttal
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- Collective Behavior, Physics, Adaptation, Cannibalism

The expression of animal personality is indicated by patterns of consistency in individual behaviour. Often, the differences exhibited between individuals are consistent across situations. However, between some situations, this can be biased by variable levels of individual plasticity. The interaction between individual plasticity and animal personality can be illustrated by examining situation-sensitive personality traits such as boldness (i.e. risk-taking and exploration tendency). For the weakly electric fish Gnathonemus petersii, light condition is a major factor influencing behaviour. Adapted to navigate in low-light conditions, this species chooses to be more active in dark environments where risk from visual predators is lower. However, G. petersii also exhibit individual differences in their degree of behavioural change from light to dark. The present study, therefore, aims to examine if an increase of motivation to explore in the safety of the dark, not only affects mean le...

- by Bob Elwood
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- Zoology, Behavioural Plasticity, Personality and Individual Differences

Sensory plasticity, whereby individuals compensate for sensory deprivation in one sense by an improvement in the performance of an alternative sense, is a well-documented phenomenon in nature. Despite this, the behavioural and ecological consequences of sensory plasticity have not been addressed. Here we show experimentally that some components (vision and chemoreception) of the sensory system of guppies are developmentally plastic, and that this plasticity has important consequences for foraging behaviour. Guppies reared under low light conditions had a significantly stronger response to chemical food cues encountered in isolation than fish reared at higher light levels. Conversely, they exhibited a weaker response to visual-only cues. When visual and olfactory/gustatory cues were presented together, no difference between the strength of response for fish reared at different light intensities was evident. Our data suggest that guppies can compensate for experience of a visually poor, low light environment via a sensory switch from vision to olfaction/ gustation. This switch from sight to chemoreception may allow individuals to carry out the foraging behaviour that is essential to their survival in a visually poor environment. These considerations are especially important given the increasing frequency of anthropogenic changes to ecosystems. Compensatory phenotypic plasticity as demonstrated by our study may provide a hitherto unconsidered buffer that could allow animals to perform fundamental behaviours in the face of considerable change to the sensory environment.

- by Ben Chapman
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- Sensory Ecology, Phenotypic Plasticity, Foraging ecology, Behavioural Plasticity

- by Ben Chapman
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- Early Modern History, Behavioural Plasticity, Boldness, Unpredictable Food Supply