No abstract

Eu ro pean ra bies mod els are mainly based on red fox Vulpes vulpes (Linnaeus, 1758) ecol ogy, be cause the fox has been the main vec tor of the dis ease in Con ti nen tal Eu rope. In north-east Eu rope, like Fin land, the rac coon dog Nyctereutes procyonoides (Gray, 1834) is an im por tant mem ber of the car ni vore com mu nity, and its signif i cance as a vec tor of ra bies has rap idly increased dur ing the last few years (WHO 2003). The rac coon dog was also the most com mon vector/vic tim of the dis ease dur ing an epizootic of sylvatic ra bies in south ern Fin land in the late 1980s (Westerling 1991). Red foxes, badg ers Meles meles (Linnaeus, 1758) and do mes tic cats Felis silvestris catus (Schreber, 1777) were the other spe cies af fected. New ra bies mod els, based on the lo cal car ni vore com mu nity with sev eral vec tor spe cies, are needed for north-east Eu rope.To build such mod els, we re quire data on the home ranges, den si ties, dis persal and hab i tat uti li sa tion pat terns of me dium-sized car ni vores, and inter-spe cific con tact rates. Home range size is a ba sic para met ric; it is gen er ally neg a tively [1] Acta Theriologica 51 (1): 1-13, 2006.

It is rare in studies of long-lived animals to know enough about the personalities and early experiences of individuals to use this information to predict their behavior during major life transitions in adolescence and adulthood. Here, we examine how personality traits and early experiences predict age of natal emigration and timing of first ascent to alpha status in 169 wild male white-faced capuchins studied at Lomas Barbudal, Costa Rica, 75 of whom emigrated and 23 of whom acquired alpha status.Males were more likely to delay natal emigration if they were more extraverted, more neurotic, if their fathers co-resided longer with them, and if there were fewer alpha male turnovers. More extraverted males attained alpha status sooner.

The vertebrate stress response comprises a suite of behavioural and physiological traits that must be functionally integrated to ensure organisms cope adaptively with acute stressors. Natural selection should favour functional integration, leading to a prediction of genetic integration of these traits. Despite the implications of such genetic integration for our understanding of human and animal health, as well as evolutionary responses to natural and anthropogenic stressors, formal quantitative genetic tests of this prediction are lacking. Here, we demonstrate that acute stress response components in Trinidadian guppies are both heritable and integrated on the major axis of genetic covariation. This integration could either facilitate or constrain evolutionary responses to selection, depending upon the alignment of selection with this axis. Such integration also suggests artificial selection on the genetically correlated behavioural responses to stress could offer a viable non-invasive route to the improvement of health and welfare in captive animal populations.

22The stress response is a product of selection for an integrated suite of behavioural and 23 physiological traits that facilitate coping with acute stressors. As such, genetic variation 24 in the stress response is expected to reflect genetic variation in, and genetic covariation 25 among, its behavioural and physiological components. Such genetic integration among 26 stress response components has yet to be formally demonstrated using multivariate 27 quantitative genetics, despite its profound implications for optimising human and 28 animal health and understanding the responses of wild populations to natural and 29 anthropogenic stressors. Here we use a laboratory population of wild-derived 30 Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) to determine levels of genetic variation in 31 behavioural and physiological components of the acute stress response, and to establish 32 whether such variation is integrated into a single major axis of genetic (co)variation. 33 First, using a novel method to characterise behavioural components of the stress 34 response from a widely used Open Field Trial paradigm, we find genetic variation in, 35 and genetic covariation among, behavioural parameters that characterise movement 36 patterns under stress. Second, we find a strong genetic component to variation in both 37 the endocrine response to a confinement stressor and the rate at which this response 38 attenuates following repeated exposures to the stressor. Finally, we show that these 39 behavioural and physiological components of the stress response align on a major axis 40 of genetic (co)variation as predicted, suggesting correlational selection in the past has 41 led to genetic integration. This genetic integration could either facilitate or constrain 42 future responses to selection, depending upon the extent to which the direction of 43 selection aligns with this major axis of genetic covariation among stress response traits.44 This genetic integration also suggests that, while stress-related disease typically arises 45 from physiological stress responses, selection on the genetically correlated behavioural 46 responses could offer a viable non-invasive route to the genetic improvement of health 47 and welfare in captive animal populations.

No abstract