Does the field of animal personality provide any new insights for behavioral ecology?

Abstract

The field of animal personalities claims to fill a gap in our understanding of animal behavior, because it explicitly studies the adaptive significance of behavioral differences. This is a controversial claim given that the field of behavioral ecology firmly places the study of animal behavior in an evolutionary context. In fact, it is the evolutionary context that differentiates behavioral ecology from ethology and animal behavior, 2 fields that were already concerned with the study of behavior in nonhuman animals. So, if behavioral ecology already takes an evolutionary approach to variation in behavior, we ask what is personality research about exactly? This question is particularly pertinent now the focus of personality research shifts and the field moves away from being mainly descriptive to include quantitative frameworks. As a result, the field has come to borrow heavily from already established fields. In our view, this has resulted in "animal personality" studies becoming nothing more than a rebranding of existing fields of research-fields that are far more solidly grounded and hypothesis driven than the often vague and superficial focus on animal personalities.

Potential feedback between coral presence and farmerfish collective behavior promotes coral recovery

“…The number of S. nigricans within each colony (which ranged from two to 26 individuals) was enumerated by a trained observer (A. J. Brooks). The behavioral assays described below were conducted in .…”

“…Intraspecific trait variation has far‐reaching ecological consequences. For instance, the mixture of genotypes in a foundational species can determine community biodiversity and composition (Crutsinger et al ) and resilience to disturbance (Hughes and Stachowicz , Ladd et al ). Or, individual variation in behavioral innovation can be associated with the performance of individuals in human‐altered environments (Tinker et al ).…”

“…Within behavioral ecology, temporally consistent individual differences in behavior are often studied under the conceptual umbrella of ‘animal personality’ (Dall et al , Sih et al ). A plethora of studies have linked animal personality with ecological outcomes, including invasion success (Cote et al ), the presence and magnitude of trophic cascades (Griffen et al ), the outcome of competitive interactions (Webster et al 2009), community succession and stability (Pruitt and Modlemeier ), landscape patterns of animal movement (Speigel et al , Sih et al ), and various aspects of population dynamics (Sih et al , Wolf and Weissing ). Together, such studies provide compelling evidence that the ecological impacts of intraspecific behavioral variation can be profound.…”

“…Social animals provide a unique backdrop for animal personality studies, because temporally consistent intraspecific variation in behavior can occur at not only the individual level but also the group level (Jandt et al ). At the individual level, group members may differ from one another along any number of behavioral axes (Modlmeier and Foitzik , Modlmeier et al , Segev et al , Barbasch and Buston ). Likewise, entire groups may differ from each other in their collective attributes, such as their collective aggressiveness whilst hunting, their tendency to forage in risky situations, or their movement behavior (Wray et al , Gordon , Aplin et al , Jolles et al ).…”

“…Likewise, entire groups may differ from each other in their collective attributes, such as their collective aggressiveness whilst hunting, their tendency to forage in risky situations, or their movement behavior (Wray et al , Gordon , Aplin et al , Jolles et al ). Several recent studies on ‘collective personality’ or ‘colony‐level personality’ have linked variation in group behavior with group growth rates (Pruitt ), productivity (Modlmeier et al ), and resource allocation strategies (Bengston et al ). Some studies have revealed that the relationship between group behavior and success can differ situationally (Pruitt et al ).…”