Abstract
Consistent inter-individual variation in behaviour within a population, widely referred to as personality variation, can be affected by environmental context. Feedbacks between an individual’s behaviour and state can strengthen (positive feedback) or weaken (negative feedback) individual differences when experiences such as predator encounters or winning contests are dependent on behavioural type. We examined the influence of foraging on individual-level consistency in refuge use (a measure of risk-taking, i.e. boldness) in three-spined sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus, and particularly whether changes in refuge use depended on boldness measured under control conditions. In the control treatment trials with no food, individuals were repeatable in refuge use across repeated trials, and this behavioural consistency did not differ between the start and end of these trials. In contrast, when food was available, individuals showed a higher degree of consistency in refuge use at the start of the trials versus controls but this consistency significantly reduced by the end of the trials. The effect of the opportunity to forage was dependent on behavioural type, with bolder fish varying more in their refuge use between the start and the end of the feeding trials than shyer fish, and boldness positively predicted the likelihood of feeding at the start but not at the end of the trials. This suggests a state-behaviour feedback, but there was no overall trend in how bolder individuals changed their behaviour. Our study shows that personality variation can be suppressed in foraging contexts and a potential but unpredictable role of feedbacks between state and behaviour.Significance statementIn this experimental study, we examined how foraging influences consistency in risk-taking in individual three-spined sticklebacks. We show that bolder individuals become less consistent in their risk-taking behaviour than shyer individuals during foraging. Some bolder individuals reinforce their risk-taking behaviour, suggesting a positive feedback between state and behaviour, while others converge on the behaviour of shyer individuals, suggesting a negative feedback. In support of a role of satiation in driving negative feedback effects, we found that bolder individuals were more likely to feed at the start but not at the end of the trials. Overall, our findings suggest that foraging can influence personality variation in risk-taking behaviour; however, the role of feedbacks may be unpredictable.
Highlights
Individuals of the same species within a population often differ consistently in their behaviour over time and contexts (Magurran et al 1998; Dall et al 2004; Sih et al 2004)
We presented three-spined sticklebacks with either a foraging context or a control trial with no food on alternate days for four consecutive days to experimentally test whether the opportunity to forage affected inter-individual consistency in refuge use behaviour between trials at the start compared to the end of trials
The latency to first leave the refuge during a trial was longer for larger fish than for smaller fish (GLMM: SL, estimate ± SE = 0.06 ± 0.021, χ2 = 7.90, P = 0.005) and increased over the 4 days of trials, but there was no significant effect of treatment (treatment: estimate = 0.07 ± 0.119, χ2 = 0.39, P = 0.53)
Summary
Individuals of the same species within a population often differ consistently in their behaviour over time and contexts (Magurran et al 1998; Dall et al 2004; Sih et al 2004). Individuals may be consistent over time in their reaction to environmental stimuli such as food (MacGregor et al 2020; Szopa-Comley et al 2020) or predators (Boissy 1995), or express behavioural correlations across contexts, such as being more aggressive to conspecifics and bolder in the presence of predators (Huntingford 1976). Personality and plasticity in behaviour have been studied independently; it is increasingly apparent that they may covary, with individuals differing in their responsiveness to changes in environmental and social conditions (Biro et al 2010; Westneat et al 2011; Dingemanse et al 2012; Laskowski and Bell 2013; Stamps 2016; Bevan et al 2018)
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