Individual differences in behaviour explain variation in survival: a meta‐analysis

Maria Moiron; Kate L. Laskowski; Petri T. Niemelä

doi:10.1111/ele.13438

journal article Dec 06, 2019

Individual differences in behaviour explain variation in survival: a meta‐analysis

Maria Moiron

Kate L. Laskowski

Petri T. Niemelä

Ecology Letters Vol. 23 No. 2 pp. 399-408 · Wiley

View at Publisher Save 10.1111/ele.13438

Abstract

AbstractResearch focusing on among‐individual differences in behaviour (‘animal personality’) has been blooming for over a decade. Central theories explaining the maintenance of such behavioural variation posits that individuals expressing greater “risky” behaviours should suffer higher mortality. Here, for the first time, we synthesize the existing empirical evidence for this key prediction. Our results did not support this prediction as there was no directional relationship between riskier behaviour and greater mortality; however there was a significant absolute relationship between behaviour and survival. In total, behaviour explained a significant, but small, portion (5.8%) of the variance in survival. We also found that risky (vs. “shy”) behavioural types live significantly longer in the wild, but not in the laboratory. This suggests that individuals expressing risky behaviours might be of overall higher quality but the lack of predation pressure and resource restrictions mask this effect in laboratory environments. Our work demonstrates that individual differences in behaviour explain important differences in survival but not in the direction predicted by theory. Importantly, this suggests that models predicting behaviour to be a mediator of reproduction‐survival trade‐offs may need revision and/or empiricists may need to reconsider their proxies of risky behaviours when testing such theory.

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Metrics

268

Citations

79

References

Details

Published: Dec 06, 2019
Vol/Issue: 23(2)
Pages: 399-408
License: View

Authors

M

Maria Moiron

Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive UMR 5175 Campus CNRS Montpellier France

K

Kate L. Laskowski

Department of Evolution and Ecology University of California Davis Davis CA USA

P

Petri T. Niemelä

Behavioural Ecology Department of Biology Ludwig‐Maximilians University of Munich Planegg‐Martinsried Germany

Funding

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Award: NI 1539/2‐1

Cite This Article

Maria Moiron, Kate L. Laskowski, Petri T. Niemelä (2019). Individual differences in behaviour explain variation in survival: a meta‐analysis. Ecology Letters, 23(2), 399-408. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13438

Individual differences in behaviour explain variation in survival: a meta‐analysis

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