Personality predicts spatial responses to food manipulations in free-ranging great tits (Parus major)

Personality differences measured under standardized lab-conditions are assumed to reflect differences in the way individuals cope with spatio-temporal changes in their natural environment, but few studies have examined how these are expressed in the field. We tested whether exploratory behaviour in a novel environment predicts how free-living individual great tits (Parus major) react to a change in food supply. We temporarily removed food at feeding stations during two summers and recorded the behavioural response of juvenile birds to these food manipulations using radio-tracking. When challenged by an abrupt change in food supply, fast-exploring individuals more rapidly switched to different foraging areas at longer distances from the feeder. This study is the first to show that personality traits predict the spatial response to experimentally induced changes in their natural environment.

[1]  P. Drent,et al.  Individuality, exploiration and foraging in hand raised juvenile Great Tits , 1999 .

[2]  P. Drent,et al.  Exploration, Aggressive Behaviour and Dominance in Pair-Wise Confrontations of Juvenile Male Great Tits , 1996 .

[3]  Alexander D. M. Wilson,et al.  Behavioural syndromes in brook charr, Salvelinus fontinalis: prey-search in the field corresponds with space use in novel laboratory situations , 2007, Animal Behaviour.

[4]  A. Sih,et al.  Behavioral Syndromes: An Integrative Overview , 2004, The Quarterly Review of Biology.

[5]  N. Dingemanse,et al.  Integrating animal temperament within ecology and evolution , 2007, Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.

[6]  Henrik G. Smith,et al.  Dominance, prior occupancy, and winter residency in the great tit (Parus major) , 1991, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

[7]  D. Réale,et al.  Personality, habitat use, and their consequences for survival in North American red squirrels Tamiasciurus hudsonicus , 2008 .

[8]  N. Dingemanse,et al.  Repeatability and heritability of exploratory behaviour in great tits from the wild , 2002, Animal Behaviour.

[9]  S. Gosling.  From mice to men: what can we learn about personality from animal research? , 2001, Psychological bulletin.

[10]  N. Dingemanse,et al.  Natal dispersal and personalities in great tits (Parus major) , 2003, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[11]  N. Dingemanse,et al.  Natural selection and animal personality , 2005 .

[12]  J. Koolhaas,et al.  Routine Formation and Flexibility in Social and Non-Social Behaviour of Aggressive and Non-Aggressive Male Mice , 1990 .