Population differences in the effect of context on personality in an invasive lizard

Brand, Jack A.; Naimo, Annalise C.; Michelangeli, Marcus; Martin, Jake M.; Sih, Andrew; Wong, Bob B. M.; Chapple, David G.

doi:10.1093/beheco/arab102

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…As Lampropholis delicata is a social species, skinks were housed in groups of up to seven individuals in plastic containers (300 × 370 mm) within temperature-controlled rooms (13:11 h light/dark cycle, maintained at 22.5 ± 1 °C), in line with established protocols 63 , 64 . Skinks from each population were randomly assigned to housing containers, with approximately 7 separate housing containers used for each population (i.e., ~98 housing containers total).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This created a thermal gradient (22–32 °C) that allowed all skinks to thermoregulate from 0800 to 1700 h. Similarly, UV lighting was provided above containers from 0800–1800 h. Skinks were fed a diet of crickets ( Acheta domesticus ) dusted in a vitamin supplement (Reptivite), three times a week, and water was made available ad libitum. Skinks were acclimated to these standardized laboratory conditions for at least 1 week before experiments, in line with previously established protocols 43 , 64 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Biological invasions as a selective filter driving behavioral divergence

et al. 2022

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Biological invasions are a multi-stage process (i.e., transport, introduction, establishment, spread), with each stage potentially acting as a selective filter on traits associated with invasion success. Behavior (e.g., exploration, activity, boldness) plays a key role in facilitating species introductions, but whether invasion acts as a selective filter on such traits is not well known. Here we capitalize on the well-characterized introduction of an invasive lizard (Lampropholis delicata) across three independent lineages throughout the Pacific, and show that invasion shifted behavioral trait means and reduced among-individual variation—two key predictions of the selective filter hypothesis. Moreover, lizards from all three invasive ranges were also more behaviorally plastic (i.e., greater within-individual variation) than their native range counterparts. We provide support for the importance of selective filtering of behavioral traits in a widespread invasion. Given that invasive species are a leading driver of global biodiversity loss, understanding how invasion selects for specific behaviors is critical for improving predictions of the effects of alien species on invaded communities.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biological invasions as a selective filter driving behavioral divergence

et al. 2022

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“…While lizards in the current experiment were previously used in a study comparing population differences in skink activity rates when in groups (i.e. no individual trials), none of the data presented here were previously reported in Brand et al ( 2021a ). Instead, we chose to focus on shelter use across varying social conditions in the present study as we were interested in the consistency of risk-taking behaviour when measured during individual and group assays.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…For example, some individuals tend to be more prone to risk-taking or are more active and exploratory than other conspecifics in the population (e.g. Jolles et al 2019 ; Michelangeli et al 2019 ; Brand et al 2021a , b ). These ‘personality traits’ or ‘behavioural types’ are typically heritable (Dingemanse et al 2002 ; Dochtermann et al 2015 ), can affect organismal fitness (Moirón et al 2019 ; Munson et al 2020 ), as well as species interactions and biological invasions (Chapple et al 2012 ; Sih et al 2012 ; Wolf and Weissing 2012 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social context mediates the expression of a personality trait in a gregarious lizard

et al. 2022

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The social environment is a key factor that influences behavioural traits across a wide array of species. Yet, when investigating individual differences in behaviour, studies tend to measure animals in isolation from other conspecifics—even in social species. Surprisingly, whether behavioural traits measured in isolation are predictive of individual-level behaviour when in social groups is still poorly understood. Here, we repeatedly measured risk-taking behaviour (i.e. boldness; 741 total trials) in both the presence and absence of conspecifics in a social lizard, the delicate skink (Lampropholis delicata). Further, we manipulated food availability during group trials to test whether the effect of the social environment on risk-taking behaviour was mediated by competition over resources. Using 105 lizards collected from three independent populations, we found that individual risk-taking behaviour was repeatable when measured in either social isolation or within groups both with and without food resources available. However, lizards that were bolder during individual trials were not also bolder when in groups, regardless of resource availability. This was largely driven by individual differences in social behavioural plasticity, whereby individual skinks responded differently to the presence of conspecifics. Together, this resulted in a rank order change of individual behavioural types across the social conditions. Our results highlight the importance of the social environment in mediating animal personality traits across varying levels of resource availability. Further, these findings suggest that behavioural traits when measured in isolation, may not reflect individual variation in behaviour when measured in more ecologically realistic social groups.

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“…Similar to Brand et al (2021a) , all models were run on four chains using relatively uninformative, default priors for a total of 5000 iterations, with a warm-up of 1000, and a thinning interval of 2. Model convergence was verified with sufficient mixing of trace plots, with all

values = 1.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex differences in the predictability of risk-taking behavior

et al. 2022

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Recent research has found that individuals often vary in how consistently they express their behavior over time (i.e., behavioral predictability) and suggested that these individual differences may be heritable. However, little is known about the intrinsic factors that drive variation in the predictability of behavior. Indeed, whether variation in behavioral predictability is sex-specific is not clear. This is important, as behavioral predictability has been associated with vulnerability to predation, suggesting that the predictability of behavioral traits may have key fitness implications. We investigated whether male and female eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) differed in the predictability of their risk-taking behavior. Specifically, over a total of 954 behavioral trials, we repeatedly measured risk-taking behavior with three commonly used assays—refuge-use, thigmotaxis, and foraging latency. We predicted that there would be consistent sex differences in both mean-level risk-taking behavior and behavioral predictability across the assays. We found that risk-taking behavior was repeatable within each assay, and that some individuals were consistently bolder than others across all three assays. There were also consistent sex differences in mean-level risk-taking behavior, with males being bolder across all three assays compared to females. In contrast, both the magnitude and direction of sex differences in behavioral predictability were assay-specific. Taken together, these results highlight that behavioral predictability may be independent from underlying mean-level behavioral traits and suggest that males and females may differentially adjust the consistency of their risk-taking behavior in response to subtle changes in environmental conditions.

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Population differences in the effect of context on personality in an invasive lizard

Cited by 9 publications

References 60 publications

Biological invasions as a selective filter driving behavioral divergence

Biological invasions as a selective filter driving behavioral divergence

Social context mediates the expression of a personality trait in a gregarious lizard

Sex differences in the predictability of risk-taking behavior

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