Personality over ontogeny in zebra finches: long-term repeatable traits but unstable behavioural syndromes

Abstract

A crucial assumption of animal personality research is that behaviour is consistent over time, showing a high repeatability within individuals. This assumption is often made, sometimes tested using short time intervals between behavioural tests, but rarely thoroughly investigated across long time intervals crossing different stages of ontogeny. We performed such a longitudinal test across three life stages in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata), representing about 15-20% of their life span in captivity, and found repeatabilities ranging from 0.03 to 0.67. Fearlessness and exploration were the most repeatable traits both within and across life stages. Activity and aggression were repeatable across, but not or only partly within life stages. Boldness was not repeatable. Furthermore, we found no evidence for a consistent behavioural syndrome structure across ontogeny. Our results indicate that the consistency of behavioural traits and their correlations might be overestimated and suggest that life-long stability of animal personality should not simply be assumed.

The ontogeny of personality traits in the desert funnel‐web spider, Agelenopsis lisa (Araneae: Agelenidae)

“…As mature males decrease their foraging intensity to search for females, penultimate males should be more consistent in their foraging intensity to gain more mass in preparation for maturation. Inconsistency in behavior across sexual maturation has also been demonstrated for boldness in dumpling squid (Sinn et al., ), zebra finches (Wuerz & Krüger, ), and crickets (Hedrick & Kortet, ; Niemelä et al., ), and superfluous killing and courtship in bridge spiders (Kralj‐Fišer & Schneider, ).…”

“…Reports to date on personality shifts across ontogeny and over longer periods of the life history of a species indicate that some aspects of personality are set early in life (Gyuris et al., ; Mazué, Dechaume‐Moncharmont, & Godin, ; Wilson & Krause, ), whereas other aspects of personality are unstable across ontogeny (Bell & Stamps, ; Hedrick & Kortet, ; Johnson & Sih, ; Niemelä et al., ; Petelle et al., ; Sinn et al., ; Wuerz & Krüger, ). Consistent with our study, Wuerz and Krüger () noted that traits can be repeatable across the life cycle (i.e., fearlessness/boldness) or only consistent within certain life stages between sexes (aggression, exploration, and activity), which is within the range of repeatabilities described in general (Bell, Hankison, & Laskowski, ; Wolak, Fairbairn, & Paulsen, ).…”

“…Work completed to date on this problem area suggests that behavioral traits and trait correlations showing temporal consistency in adults of a species are not necessarily temporally consistent across ontogeny (Bell & Stamps, ; Hedrick & Kortet, ; Johnson & Sih, ; Niemelä, Vainikka, Hedrick, & Kortet, ; Petelle, McCoy, Alejandro, Martin, & Blumstein, ; Sinn, Gosling, & Moltschaniwskyj, ; Wuerz & Krüger, ). Both individual life history and behavior are known to be sensitive to conditions during development.…”

Heritability and social brood effects on personality in juvenile and adult life‐history stages in a wild passerine

“…However, this is not surprising in the context of our study for three main reasons. First, the strongest syndromes are found within the same test environment (Garamszegi et al ., ) and could be stronger over short timescales (Wuerz & Krüger, ). We found no syndrome in traits measured across test environments and over a long period of time.…”

“…Third and last, selection pressures on a given syndrome structure might vary between life‐history stages, leading to correlations between behavioural traits within but not between life‐history stages (Wolf et al ., ; Groothuis & Trillmich, ; Chan & Kim, ), as supported by empirical work (Hedrick & Kortet, ; Kluen & Brommer, ). Wuerz & Krüger () show that personality traits can remain stable through ontogeny but behavioural syndromes can break down, and Ballew et al . () show that selection pressures on the same behaviour can vary between juvenile and adult stages.…”