Context‐dependent individual behavioral consistency in Daphnia

Giuseppe Bianco,Jan Heuschele,Mikael T Ekvall,Samuel Hylander,Lars‐Anders Hansson

doi:10.1002/ecs2.1679

Giuseppe Bianco, Jan Heuschele + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.1679

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Abstract

AbstractThe understanding of consistent individual differences in behavior, often termed “personality,” for adapting and coping with threats and novel environmental conditions has advanced considerably during the last decade. However, advancements are almost exclusively associated with higher‐order animals, whereas studies focusing on smaller aquatic organisms are still rare. Here, we show individual differences in the swimming behavior of Daphnia magna, a clonal freshwater invertebrate, before, during, and after being exposed to a lethal threat, ultraviolet radiation (UVR). We show consistency in swimming velocity among both mothers and daughters of D. magna in a neutral environment, whereas this pattern breaks down when exposed to UVR. Our study also, for the first time, illustrates how the ontogenetic development in swimming and refuge‐seeking behavior of young individuals eventually approaches that of adults. Overall, we show that aquatic invertebrates are far from being identical robots, but instead they show considerable individual differences in behavior that can be attributed to both ontogenetic development and individual consistency. Our study also demonstrates, for the first time, that behavioral consistency and repeatability, that is, something resembling “personality,” is context and state dependent in this zooplankter taxa.

Highlights

Individual behavior plays a key role in the interaction between an organism and its environment, since behavioral changes are generally the first responses to an alteration in environmental conditions
The swimming behavior and the resulting spatial distribution of individuals are often driven by the risk in different areas of the habitat and influenced by the individual state. These consistent behavioral differences among individuals within and between contexts are important for the dynamics of animal populations (Smith and Blumstein 2008) and are sometimes termed behavioral types (Sih et al 2004)
The swimming velocity of individual Daphnia was repeatable between assays before they were exposed to ultraviolet radiation (UVR); that is, individuals that were fast in the first trial were generally fast in the two consecutive trials, and likewise, slow ones remained slower (Table 1, Fig. 2)

Summary

Introduction

Individual behavior plays a key role in the interaction between an organism and its environment, since behavioral changes are generally the first responses to an alteration in environmental conditions. It affects, and is affected by, physiology, habitat choice, and ecological and evolutionary feedbacks (Chapman et al 2011). The swimming behavior and the resulting spatial distribution of individuals are often driven by the (perceived) risk in different areas of the habitat and influenced by the individual state (e.g., age, energy levels, hormonal levels) These consistent behavioral differences among individuals within and between contexts are important for the dynamics of animal populations (Smith and Blumstein 2008) and are sometimes termed behavioral types (Sih et al 2004). Knowledge about state-dependent and interindividual differences is needed to understand and predict the distribution patterns we observe in nature

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