No personality without experience? A test on Rana dalmatina tadpoles

• Published in: Ecology and evolution Vol. 5; no. 24; pp. 5847 - 5856
• Main Authors: Urszán, Tamás J., Garamszegi, László Z., Nagy, Gergely, Hettyey, Attila, Török, János, Herczeg, Gábor
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.12.2015; John Wiley and Sons Inc
• Subjects: Adaptation; Animal behavior; Animal personality; Behavioral plasticity; behavioral syndrome; Consistency; Conspecifics; Cues; Emergence; environment; Environmental effects; evolution; Experiments; Genotype-environment interactions; Genotypes; Hypotheses; Laboratory animals; Ontogeny; Original Research; Personality; Phenotypic plasticity; Plasticity; Predation; Predators; Quantitative genetics; Rana dalmatina; Risk perception; Risk taking; Studies; plasticity; environment; evolution; Animal personality; behavioral syndrome
• ISSN: 2045-7758; 2045-7758
• DOI: 10.1002/ece3.1804

While the number of studies reporting the presence of individual behavioral consistency (animal personality, behavioral syndrome) has boomed in the recent years, there is still much controversy about the proximate and ultimate mechanisms resulting in the phenomenon. For instance, direct environmental effects during ontogeny (phenotypic plasticity) as the proximate mechanism behind the emergence of consistent individual differences in behavior are usually overlooked compared to environmental effects operating across generations (genetic adaptation). Here, we tested the effects of sociality and perceived predation risk during ontogeny on the strength of behavioral consistency in agile frog (Rana dalmatina) tadpoles in a factorial common garden experiment. Tadpoles reared alone and without predatory cues showed zero repeatability within (i.e., lack of personality) and zero correlation between (i.e., lack of syndrome) activity and risk‐taking. On the other hand, cues from predators alone induced both activity and risk‐taking personalities, while cues from predators and conspecifics together resulted in an activity – risk‐taking behavioral syndrome. Our results show that individual experience has an unequivocal role in the emergence of behavioral consistency. In this particular case, the development of behavioral consistency was most likely the result of genotype × environment interactions, or with other words, individual variation in behavioral plasticity. In this paper we tested the effects of two relevant ecological stimuli, sociality and perceived predation risk during ontogeny, on the strength of behavioural consistency in agile frog (Rana dalmatina) tadpoles in a factorial common garden experiment. Tadpoles reared alone and without predatory cues showed zero repeatability within (i.e. lack of personality) and zero correlation between (i.e. lack of syndrome) activity and risk‐taking while cues from predators alone induced both activity and risk‐taking personalities, while cues from predators and conspecifics together resulted in an activity – risk‐taking behavioural syndrome. Our results show that individual experience has an important role in the emergence of behavioural consistency.