Interacting with the enemy: indirect effects of personality on conspecific aggression in crickets

Santostefano, Francesca; Wilson, Alastair J.; Araya‐Ajoy, Yimen G.; Dingemanse, Niels Jeroen

doi:10.1093/beheco/arw037

Cited by 65 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 87 publications

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“…In each compartment, fine-grained white sand was spread on the bottom, and a plastic semi-cylinder was provided as a shelter (Fig. 2 in [55]). The tracking software then measured each individual’s total distance moved in the compartment for 10 minutes [55, 60].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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You are what you eat: diet shapes body composition, personality and behavioural stability

Han

Dingemanse

2017

BMC Evol Biol

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BackgroundBehavioural phenotypes vary within and among individuals. While early-life experiences have repeatedly been proposed to underpin interactions between these two hierarchical levels, the environmental factors causing such effects remain under-studied. We tested whether an individual’s diet affected both its body composition, average behaviour (thereby causing among-individual variation or ‘personality’) and within-individual variability in behaviour and body weight (thereby causing among-individual differences in residual within-individual variance or ‘stability’), using the Southern field cricket Gryllus bimaculatus as a model. We further asked whether effects of diet on the expression of these variance components were sex-specific.MethodsManipulating both juvenile and adult diet in a full factorial design, individuals were put, in each life-stage, on a diet that was either relatively high in carbohydrates or relatively high in protein. We subsequently measured the expression of multiple behavioural (exploration, aggression and mating activity) and morphological traits (body weight and lipid mass) during adulthood.ResultsDietary history affected both average phenotype and level of within-individual variability: males raised as juveniles on high-protein diets were heavier, more aggressive, more active during mating, and behaviourally less stable, than conspecifics raised on high-carbohydrate diets. Females preferred more protein in their diet compared to males, and dietary history affected average phenotype and within-individual variability in a sex-specific manner: individuals raised on high-protein diets were behaviourally less stable in their aggressiveness but this effect was only present in males. Diet also influenced individual differences in male body weight, but within-individual variance in female body weight.DiscussionThis study thereby provides experimental evidence that dietary history explains both heterogeneous residual within-individual variance (i.e., individual variation in ‘behavioural stability’) and individual differences in average behaviour (i.e., ‘personality’), though dietary effects were notably trait-specific. These findings call for future studies integrating proximate and ultimate perspectives on the role of diet in the evolution of repeatedly expressed traits, such as behaviour and body weight.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12862-016-0852-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2 in [55]). The tracking software then measured each individual’s total distance moved in the compartment for 10 minutes [55, 60]. The compartment was novel to the crickets, and we essentially quantified how much time individuals spend out of the shelter, exploring the novel environment.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

You are what you eat: diet shapes body composition, personality and behavioural stability

Han

Dingemanse

2017

BMC Evol Biol

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“…All details of our assay procedures are described elsewhere (Santostefano et al. ; Han and Dingemanse ). In brief, males were removed from their individual containers and placed in a plastic arena with a removable partition in the middle to create two small rooms (15 × 15 × 10 cm 3 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increased developmental density decreases the magnitude of indirect genetic effects expressed during agonistic interactions in an insect

et al. 2018

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The expression of aggression depends not only on the direct genetic effects (DGEs) of an individual's genes on its own behavior, but also on indirect genetic effects (IGEs) caused by heritable phenotypes expressed by social partners. IGEs can affect the amount of heritable variance on which selection can act. Despite the important roles of IGEs in the evolutionary process, it remains largely unknown whether the strength of IGEs varies across life stages or competitive regimes. Based on manipulations of nymphal densities and> 3000 pair-wise aggression tests across multiple life stages, we experimentally demonstrate that IGEs on aggression are stronger in field crickets (Gryllus bimaculatus) that develop at lower densities than in those that develop at higher densities, and that these effects persist with age. The existence of density-dependent IGEs implies that social interactions strongly determine the plastic expression of aggression when competition for resources is relaxed. A more competitive (higher density) rearing environment may fail to provide crickets with sufficient resources to develop social cognition required for strong IGEs. The contribution of IGEs to evolutionary responses was greater at lower densities. Our study thereby demonstrates the importance of considering IGEs in density-dependent ecological and evolutionary processes.

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“…In Pogonomyrmex californicus, a harvester ant, variation in the social composition of founding groups of queens in cooperative colonies determines behavioral outcomes in aggression and brood care phenotypes (Clark and Fewell 2013). IGEs have been documented across a range of additional social traits, including paternal care (Head et al 2012), social dominance (Moore et al 2002;Wilson et al 2011), agonistic encounters (Wilson et al 2009;Santostefano et al 2016), group antipredator behavior (Bleakley et al 2009;Edenbrow et al 2017), and breeding date in birds (Germain et al 2016). In the mosquitofish Gambusia holbrooki, direct genetic effects (DGEs) influence the number of social partners that males of different color morphs encounter, illustrating how DGEs and IGEs can covary (Kraft et al 2016), a critical parameter influencing evolutionary dynamics (Bijma 2014).…”

Section: Empirical Evidence For Iges In Behavioral Ecology Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Indirect genetic effects in behavioral ecology: does behavior play a special role in evolution?

2017

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Behavior is rapidly flexible and highly context-dependent, which poses obvious challenges to researchers attempting to dissect its causes. However, over a century of unresolved debate has also focused on whether the very flexibility and context-dependence of behavior lends it a unique role in the evolutionary origins and patterns of diversity in the Animal Kingdom. Here, we propose that both challenges can benefit from studying how indirect genetic effects (IGEs: the effects of genes expressed in one individual on traits in another individual) shape behavioral phenotypes. We provide a sketch of the theoretical framework that grounds IGEs in behavioral ecology research and focus on recent advances made from studies of IGEs in areas of behavioral ecology such as sexual selection, sexual conflict, social dominance, and parent-offspring interactions. There is mounting evidence that IGEs have important influences on behavioral phenotypes associated with these processes, such as sexual signals and preferences and behaviors which function to manipulate interacting partners. IGEs can also influence both responses to selection and selection itself, and considering IGEs refines evolutionary predictions and provides new perspectives on the origins of seemingly perplexing behavioral traits. A key unresolved question, but one that has dominated the behavioral sciences for over a century, is whether behavior is more likely than other types of traits to contribute to evolutionary change and diversification. We advocate taking advantage of an IGE approach to outline falsifiable hypotheses and a general methodology to rigorously test this frequently proposed, yet still contentious, special role of behavior in evolution.

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Interacting with the enemy: indirect effects of personality on conspecific aggression in crickets

Cited by 65 publications

References 87 publications

You are what you eat: diet shapes body composition, personality and behavioural stability

You are what you eat: diet shapes body composition, personality and behavioural stability

Increased developmental density decreases the magnitude of indirect genetic effects expressed during agonistic interactions in an insect

Indirect genetic effects in behavioral ecology: does behavior play a special role in evolution?

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