Drift in Individual Behavioral Phenotype as a Strategy for Unpredictable Worlds.

Abstract

Why do individuals animals spontaneously change their preferences over time? While stable idiosyncratic behavioral preferences have been proposed to help species survive unpredictable environments as part of a bet-hedging strategy, the role of intraindividual shifts in preferences is unclear. Using Drosophila melanogaster , we show the stability of individual preferences is influenced by genetic background and neuromodulation, and is therefore a regulated phenomenon. We use theoretical modeling to show that shifts in preferences may be adaptive to environments that change within an individual's lifespan, including many real world patterns of environmental fluctuations. Together, this work suggests that the stability of individual preferences may affect the survival of species in unpredictable worlds - understanding that may be increasingly important in the face of anthropogenic change.