Abstract
Consistent individual differences in cognitive appraisal and emotional reactivity, including fearfulness, are important personality traits in humans, non-human mammals, and birds. Comparative studies on teleost fishes support the existence of coping styles and behavioral syndromes also in poikilothermic animals. The functionalist approach to emotions hold that emotions have evolved to ensure appropriate behavioral responses to dangerous or rewarding stimuli. Little information is however available on how evolutionary widespread these putative links between personality and the expression of emotional or affective states such as fear are. Here we disclose that individual variation in coping style predicts fear responses in Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus, using the principle of avoidance learning. Fish previously screened for coping style were given the possibility to escape a signalled aversive stimulus. Fearful individuals showed a range of typically reactive traits such as slow recovery of feed intake in a novel environment, neophobia, and high post-stress cortisol levels. Hence, emotional reactivity and appraisal would appear to be an essential component of animal personality in species distributed throughout the vertebrate subphylum.
Highlights
Individual variation in the physiological and behavioural responses to aversive stimuli is increasingly viewed as adaptive responses that are crucial for survival in a continuously changing environment [1]
Coping styles in Nile tilapia Feed intake recovery after transfer into a novel environment was shown to predict neophobia. This suggests that fish recovering their feed intake faster after transfer to a novel environment show lower neophobic response when exposed to a novel object, i.e. traits typically ascribed to bold individuals
It is generally accepted that in fish, individual variation in behaviour and physiology when exposed to environmental challenges, reflect the existence of coping styles [3,28]
Summary
Individual variation in the physiological and behavioural responses to aversive stimuli is increasingly viewed as adaptive responses that are crucial for survival in a continuously changing environment [1]. In contrast to the presumed advantages of flexible responses, when faced with changing environmental conditions, individuals of the same species or population show consistent responses in stressful and dangerous situations [2,3,4]. This phenomenon is referred to as animal personality [5], behavioural syndrome [6], temperament [7], or coping style [2]. The capacity for emotions is likely to differ substantially between species as a consequence of both evolutionary lineage and selective pressures associated with life history [13]. For example, as a negative emotion increases precautionary behaviour, allowing individuals to avoid potential threat or danger and, has an adaptive value [14]
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