Exploration Behavior and Morphology are Correlated in Captive Gray Mouse Lemurs (Microcebus murinus)

Abstract

Behavior varies among individuals and is flexible within individuals. However, studies of behavioral syndromes and animal personality have demonstrated that animals can show consistency in their behavior and as such may be restricted in their behavioral responses. Like any other trait, including morphology, performance, or physiology, personality is now considered an important component of ecology and may have fitness consequences. Moreover, in some species personality correlates with other traits, as predicted in the context of a recent theoretical framework postulating that individual differences in growth and body size can affect behavior through effects on growth–mortality tradeoffs. This “pace of life” hypothesis predicts that animals that explore more should be larger and have higher growth rates than those that explore less. We tested for associations between morphology and a behavioral trait in a captive colony of gray mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus). We used open-field tests to evaluate exploration behavior and measured a series of morphological traits in 72 individuals (32 males and 40 females). Our results show that the latency to start exploring correlates positively with adult body size and body weight at birth. These data provide evidence for a link between morphology and behavior in this species, thus supporting predictions of dispersal models but diverging from the predictions of the “pace of life” model.