Fitness, risk taking, and spatial behavior covary with boldness in experimental vole populations. ...

• Main Authors: Eccard, Jana A, Herde, Antje, Schuster, Andrea C, Liesenjohann, Thilo, Knopp, Tatjana, Heckel, Gerald, Dammhahn, Melanie
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2022
• Subjects: 570 Life sciences; biology; Microtus arvalis
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48350/165818; https://boris.unibe.ch/165818/

Individuals of a population may vary along a pace-of-life syndrome from highly fecund, short-lived, bold, dispersive "fast" types at one end of the spectrum to less fecund, long-lived, shy, plastic "slow" types at the other end. Risk-taking behavior might mediate the underlying life history trade-off, but empirical evidence supporting this hypothesis is still ambiguous. Using experimentally created populations of common voles (Microtus arvalis)-a species with distinct seasonal life history trajectories-we aimed to test whether individual differences in boldness behavior covary with risk taking, space use, and fitness. We quantified risk taking, space use (via automated tracking), survival, and reproductive success (via genetic parentage analysis) in 8 to 14 experimental, mixed-sex populations of 113 common voles of known boldness type in large grassland enclosures over a significant part of their adult life span and two reproductive events. Populations were assorted to contain extreme boldness types (bold or ...