Individual differences in behaviour explain variation in survival: a meta‐analysis

Moiron, Maria; Laskowski, Kate L.; Niemelä, Petri T.

doi:10.1111/ele.13438

Cited by 215 publications

(210 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…Luttbeg & Sih, 2010). These adaptive interpretations contrast with a recent meta-analysis showing that riskier behavioural types tended to have higher survival in the wild (Moiron, Laskowski, & Niemelä, 2020), which may highlight a distinction between behavioural variation due to personality trait differences and due to state-dependent effects.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 87%

Poor nutritional condition promotes high-risk behaviours: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Moran¹,

Sánchez‐Tójar²,

Schielzeth³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Animal behaviour can lead to varying levels of risk, and an individual’s physical condition can alter the potential costs and benefits of undertaking risky behaviours. How risk-taking behaviour depends on condition is subject to contrasting hypotheses. The asset protection principle proposes that individuals in better condition should be more risk averse, as they have higher future reproductive potential (i.e. more to lose). The state-dependent safety hypothesis proposes that high-condition individuals that are more likely to survive and maximise the benefits of risky situations may make apparently riskier choices, as their individual risk is in fact lower. We systematically searched for studies that experimentally manipulated animals’ nutritional or energetic condition through diet treatments, and subsequently measured risk-taking behaviour in contexts relating to predation, novelty, exploration. Our meta-analysis quantified condition effects on risk-taking behaviour at both the mean and variance level. We preregistered our methods and hypotheses prior to conducting the study. Phylogenetic multilevel meta-analysis revealed that the lower nutritional condition individuals showed on average ca. 26% greater tendency towards risk than high-condition individuals (95% confidence interval: 15% – 38%; n = 126 studies, 1297 effect sizes). Meta-regressions revealed several factors influencing the overall effect, such as the experimental context used to measure risk-taking behaviour, and the life-stage when condition was manipulated. Meta-analysis of variance revealed no clear overall effect of condition on behavioural variance (on average ca. 3% decrease in variance in low- vs high-condition groups; 95% confidence interval: -8% – 3%; n = 119 studies, 1235 effect sizes), however, the experimental context was an important factor influencing the strength and direction of the variance effect. Our comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis provide insights into the roles of state-dependency and plasticity in intraspecific behavioural variation. While heterogeneity among effect sizes was high, our results show that poor nutritional state on average increases risk-taking in ecological contexts involving predation, novelty and exploration.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 87%

Poor nutritional condition promotes high-risk behaviours: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Moran¹,

Sánchez‐Tójar²,

Schielzeth³

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While myriad studies have established the importance of prey traits for predator-prey interactions [3,17,19], these studies are typically focused at either the individual level within a natural selection context [3] or at the community level within a species selection context [45]. Such traditional approaches overlook the ecological effects of population-or group-level trait variance [11], a potential key property linking the traits of individuals to communities.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The importance of prey traits for predatory interactions spans multiple biological scales. For example, predators exert selection on prey populations by preferentially consuming individuals with certain trait values [1][2][3][4][5][6], but also modify community structure by disproportionally consuming one prey species over another [7]. This latter effect is often ascribed to mean, species-level trait differences [8][9][10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While this latter indirect effect would not occur with prey traits that are fixed over short durations (e.g., body size), this type of indirect effect could be prevalent for traits whose expression is context-dependent, such as behavior [25]. Nevertheless, the majority of studies examine the effects of prey behavioral traits at the individual level (i.e., a natural selection context) [3], while community-level effects of behavioral trait variance remain poorly understood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intraspecific Behavioral Variation Mediates Insect Prey Survival via Direct and Indirect Effects

2020

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Conspecific individuals often exhibit behavioral differences that influence susceptibility to predation. Yet, how such trait differences scale to affect prey population regulation and community structure remains unclear. We used an 8 day field mesocosm experiment to explore the effects of intraspecific prey behavioral trait variation on survival in an herbivorous insect community. We further manipulated spider predator composition to test for top-down context-dependence of behavioral effects. Insect prey behavioral trait variance influenced survival through both direct (i.e., variation among conspecifics) and indirect (i.e., variation among heterospecifics) mechanisms. The behavioral variance of two prey species, Philaenus and Orchelimum, directly reduced their survival, though for Philaenus, this direct negative effect only occurred in the presence of a single spider predator species. In contrast, the survival of Scudderia was enhanced by the behavioral trait variance of the surrounding insect community, an indirect positive effect. Taken together, these results emphasize the importance of accounting for intraspecific variation in community ecology, demonstrating novel pathways by which individual-level behavioral differences scale to alter population and community level patterns.

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“…While between‐individual changes were an unlikely cause of age‐related decline in boldness in this F1 captive‐reared population, different mechanisms may be at work in natural populations. Indeed, maintaining animals in laboratories often involves providing ad libitum food and ensuring the absence of predators and pathogens, but such conditions may disrupt the relationship between behaviour and survival (Moiron, Laskowski, & Niemelä, 2020). In this context, typically harsher natural conditions provide useful set‐ups to investigate the role of between‐individual patterns.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual plasticity drives boldness senescence in a territorial butterfly

et al. 2020

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Most behavioural traits show plastic responses to changes in internal or external conditions. Similarly, animal personality is not necessarily fixed during an individual's lifetime, leading to age-related changes. Both individual plasticity (i.e., within-individual effect) and non-random selective (dis)appearance of behavioural types (i.e., between-individual effect) may contribute to age-related changes observed at the population level. Here, we investigated how boldness changes with age in a woodland population of the Speckled wood butterfly (Pararge aegeria L.) using a capturemark-recapture approach. We used wing wear as an index for age and we show that fresh individuals are bolder than worn individuals. Using the subsample of recaptured butterflies, we found that this pattern is most likely driven by individual plasticity. Our design also allowed us to explore some aspects of the species' spatial ecology and how it relates to personality. We found no relationship between boldness and net displacement between successive captures, a finding which we discuss within a movement ecology framework.

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Individual differences in behaviour explain variation in survival: a meta‐analysis

Cited by 215 publications

References 75 publications

Poor nutritional condition promotes high-risk behaviours: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Poor nutritional condition promotes high-risk behaviours: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Intraspecific Behavioral Variation Mediates Insect Prey Survival via Direct and Indirect Effects

Individual plasticity drives boldness senescence in a territorial butterfly

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