Fitness, risk taking, and spatial behavior covary with boldness in experimental vole populations ...
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 behaviour might mediate the underlying life-history trade-o...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Dataset |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Dryad
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.44j0zpcfs https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.44j0zpcfs |
| Summary: | 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 behaviour 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 behaviour co-vary 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 ... : Our study had three steps (Table 1): we (a) captured individuals from free ranging populations, and selected the extreme boldness types to compose experimental populations, (b) released experimental populations of both sexes into near-natural large outdoor enclosures and recorded space use and risk taking with indirect telemetry methods (ART and RFID) over two reproductive events (5-6 weeks), (c) recaptured individuals from outdoor enclosures to monitor survival and estimate reproductive success based on parentage analysis. All individuals were wild captured. Boldness tests were assessed repeatedly in standard test for animal personality in the laboratory before individuals were sorted into experimental populations and brought outside into the enclosures. ... |
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