Bold and bright: shy and supple? The effect of habitat type on personality–cognition covariance in the Aegean wall lizard (Podarcis erhardii)

Meester, Gilles De; Pafilis, Panayiotis; Damme, Raoul Van

doi:10.1007/s10071-021-01587-0

Cited by 18 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 135 publications

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“…Overall, neophobia is studied across vertebrates but research in lizards is scarce (Crane et al 2020). A study in the Aegean wall lizard (Podarcis erhardii) tested object neophobia by measuring the time it took lizards to consume food next to an unfamiliar object (De Meester et al 2022). Other studies in lizards focussed on neophilia, the attraction towards novelty (Takola et al 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fear of the new? Geckos hesitate to attack novel prey, feed near objects and enter a novel space

Szabo

Ringler

2022

Anim Cogn

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Neophobia, the fear of novelty, is an ecologically important response which enables animals to avoid potentially harmful situations. Neophobia is a cognitive process by which individuals distinguish novelty from familiarity. In this study, we aimed to quantify this cognitive process in captive tokay geckos (Gekko gecko) across three contexts: when encountering novel prey, foraging near novel objects and entering a novel space. We also investigated individual consistency across trials using different novel stimuli, and correlation of individual responses across the three contexts. We found that geckos hesitate to attack novel prey and prey close to objects (familiar and novel). Geckos hesitated the most when entering novel space. Repeatability of behaviour within and across contexts was low (R = 0.101–0.190) indicating that neophobia might not be expressed similarly across contexts. The strength of a neophobic response can indicate how anxious or curious an individual is. This test has great potential to help answer questions about how captivity, enrichment, rearing environment and cognition affect fear responses in different contexts in lizards. By studying reptiles, we can better understand the universality of what is known about the causes leading to difference in neophobia across individuals and species.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fear of the new? Geckos hesitate to attack novel prey, feed near objects and enter a novel space

Szabo

Ringler

2022

Anim Cogn

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“…Repeatability of responses towards novel objects and novel foods in corvids was calculated around 0.5 (Miller et al, 2022). In lizards, studies have found repeatability of around 0.4 (Damas-Moreira et al, 2019;De Meester et al, 2022) but also similar low repeatability of about 0.1 (Damas-Moreira, Riley, Harris, & Whiting, 2019). Damas-Moreira and colleagues (2019) interpreted this low repeatability as evidence for flexibility.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…birds: Milvago chimango, Guido et al, 2017) but not all studies found such a link (e.g. fish: Neolamprologus pulcher, Bannier, Tebbich, & Taborsky, 2017; lizards: Podarcis erhardii, De Meester, Pafilis, & Van Damme, 2022). Finally, species differences in neophobia can be explained by the trophic level they inhabit (Crane & Ferrari, 2017), diet (Mettke-Hofmann, Winkler, & Leisler, 2002), habitat urbanisation (Miller et al, 2022) and their tendency to exploit new habitats (invasiveness) or migrate (Greenberg & Mettke-Hofmann, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Overall, neophobia is studied across vertebrates but research in lizards is scarce (Crane et al, 2020). A study in the Aegean wall lizard (Podarcis erhardii) tested object neophobia by measuring the time it took lizards to consume food next to an unfamiliar object (De Meester et al, 2022). Other studies in lizards focused on neophilia, the attraction towards novelty (Takola et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fear of the new? Geckos hesitate to attack novel prey, feed near objects and enter a novel space

Szabo

Ringler

2022

Preprint

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Neophobia, the fear of novelty, is an ecologically important response which enables animals to avoid potentially harmful situations. Low levels of neophobia have been linked to elevated dispersal/ migration, invasiveness and living in human modified landscapes albeit only in birds and mammals. In this study, we assessed neophobia in captive Tokay geckos (Gekko gecko). We expected to find low neophobia in our geckos because they are invasive and adopt well to anthropogenic environments. This species is, however, also both predator and prey in the wild which might select for higher neophobia. We tested neophobia in three contexts: attacking novel prey, foraging near novel objects and entering a novel space. We aimed to quantify (1) neophobia in these contexts, (2) individual consistency across trials using different novel stimuli, and (3) correlation of individual responses across the three contexts. We found that geckos hesitate to attack novel prey and prey close to objects (familiar and novel). Geckos hesitated the most when entering novel space and repeatability of behaviour across contexts was low (R = 0.12) indicating that neophobia might not be a single trait. The strength of a neophobic response can indicate how anxious or curious an individual is. This test has great potential to help answer questions about how captivity, enrichment, rearing environment and cognition affect fear responses in different contexts in lizards. By studying reptiles, we can better understand the universality of what is known about the causes leading to difference in neophobia across individuals and species.

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“…As a result, despite our conditional modes losing the error around the point estimates, our models using these estimates were the most robust we could fit and draw inference from. Previous research has also consistently used this approach (without the associated error) in personality studies as response variables 26 , 27 , population-level/fixed effects 28 , 29 , or as variables in correlations and principal component analysis 30 . However, we do acknowledge that losing the associated error from the conditional modes may contribute to anticonservative estimates in the models analysing occurrence patterns.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intolerant baboons avoid observer proximity, creating biased inter-individual association patterns

Allan

White²,

Hill

2022

Sci Rep

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Social network analysis is an increasingly popular tool for behavioural ecologists exploring the social organisation of animal populations. Such analyses require data on inter-individual association patterns, which in wild populations are often collected using direct observations of habituated animals. This assumes observers have no influence on animal behaviour; however, our previous work showed that individuals in a habituated group of chacma baboons (Papio ursinus griseipes) displayed consistent and individually distinct responses to observer approaches. We explored the implications of our previous findings by measuring the inter-individual association patterns of the same group of chacma baboons at different observer distances. We found a strong positive association between individual tolerance levels (towards observers) and how often an animal appeared as a neighbour to focal animals when observers were nearer, and a neutral relationship between the same variables when the observer was further away. Additionally, association matrices constructed from different observation distances were not comparable within any proximity buffer, and neither were the individual network metrics generated from these matrices. This appears to be the first empirical evidence that observer presence and behaviour can influence the association patterns of habituated animals and thus have potentially significant impacts on measured social networks.

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Bold and bright: shy and supple? The effect of habitat type on personality–cognition covariance in the Aegean wall lizard (Podarcis erhardii)

Cited by 18 publications

References 135 publications

Fear of the new? Geckos hesitate to attack novel prey, feed near objects and enter a novel space

Fear of the new? Geckos hesitate to attack novel prey, feed near objects and enter a novel space

Fear of the new? Geckos hesitate to attack novel prey, feed near objects and enter a novel space

Intolerant baboons avoid observer proximity, creating biased inter-individual association patterns

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