Personality-matching habitat choice, rather than behavioural plasticity, is a likely driver of a phenotype–environment covariance

Abstract

An emerging hypothesis of animal personality posits that animals choose the habitat that best fits their personality, and that the match between habitat and personality can facilitate population differentiation, and eventually speciation. However, behavioural plasticity and the adjustment of behaviours to new environments have been a classical explanation for such matching patterns. Using a population of dunnocks (), we empirically tested whether personality or behavioural plasticity is responsible for the non-random distribution of shy and bold individuals in a heterogeneous environment. We found evidence for bold individuals settling in areas with high human disturbance, but also that birds became bolder with increasing age. Importantly, personality primarily determines the distribution of individuals, and behavioural adjustment over time contributes very little to the observed patterns. We cannot, however, exclude a possibility of very early behavioural plasticity (a type of developmental plasticity) shaping what we refer to as 'personality'. Nonetheless, our findings highlight the role personality plays in shaping population structure, lending support to the theory of personality-mediated speciation. Moreover, personality-matching habitat choice has important implications for population management and conservation.

Contagious fear: Escape behavior increases with flock size in European gregarious birds

“…Large species of birds have long FIDs, because larger species need more time to get airborne and hence avoid capture (Fernández-Juricic et al, 2006;Hemmingsen, 1951;Møller, 2008c;Weston et al, 2012). We know that birds from rural areas tend to escape earlier than birds from urban areas, being less tolerant of humans, probably because urban birds live under lower predation risk than their rural counterparts (Møller, 2015;Samia et al, 2017), because urban birds have become adapted or habituated to the presence of humans (Carrete & Tella, 2013;Holtmann, Santos, Lara, & Nakagawa, 2017), or because local selection for bolder individuals has occurred (van Dongen, Robinson, Weston, Mulder, & Guay, 2015). Additionally, we know that behavioral responses of animals to human approach such as FID can be useful for conservation purposes, namely management of disturbance, especially in human-dominated environments (Guay, Dongen, Robinson, Blumstein, & Weston, 2016;Weston et al, 2012).…”

Great tits take greater risk toward humans and sparrowhawks in urban habitats than in forests

“…This may happen by differential colonization, when cities are colonized by a subset of individuals that have above‐average general risk‐taking (Møller, ), for example, due to differences in pace‐of‐life syndromes (Charmantier, Demeyrier, Lambrechts, Perret, & Grégoire, ; Sol et al, ). Also, local microevolutionary adaptation in cities may lead to intrinsic differences in general risk‐taking between urban and non‐urban populations (Carrete & Tella, ; Holtmann, Santos, Lara, & Nakagawa, ; Sprau & Dingemanse, ). Furthermore, habituation to human disturbance may also be transferred to other type of threats, resulting in reduced general risk‐taking (McCleery, ).…”

Boldness related to size in the hermit crab Coenobita compressus at undisturbed, but not disturbed beach

“…Populations can also show shifts in the mean expression of behavior in response to habitat disturbance. Animals in urban habitats are usually bolder in the presence of humans, either because they habituate to humans (Evans, Boudreau & Hyman, ) or because bolder individuals are more likely to settle in disturbed habitats when those habitats better match their behavioral type (Holtmann, Santos, Lara & Nakagawa, ). Bolder individuals may prefer to colonize disturbed habitats and/or bolder individuals may be more likely to persist in them through local adaptation (Vincze et al., and references therein).…”

“…Bolder individuals may prefer to colonize disturbed habitats and/or bolder individuals may be more likely to persist in them through local adaptation (Vincze et al., and references therein). Habituation to predators is a form of behavioral plasticity (Holtmann et al., ; Rodríguez‐Prieto, Martín & Fernández‐Juricic, ). Individuals learn through repeated exposure that humans do not represent a threat, and change their behavioral response plastically, becoming bolder around humans (Evans et al., ; Vincze et al., ).…”

“…habitats better match their behavioral type (Holtmann, Santos, Lara & Nakagawa, 2017). Bolder individuals may prefer to colonize disturbed habitats and/or bolder individuals may be more likely to persist in them through local adaptation (Vincze et al, 2016 and references therein).…”