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Zipple MN, Kuo DC, Meng X, Reichard TM, Guess K, Vogt CC, Moeller AH, Sheehan MJ. Sex-specific competitive social feedback amplifies the role of early life contingency in male mice. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.04.19.590322. [PMID: 38659792 PMCID: PMC11042324 DOI: 10.1101/2024.04.19.590322] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/26/2024]
Abstract
Contingency (or 'luck') in early life plays an important role in shaping individuals' development. When individuals live within larger societies, social experiences may cause the importance of early contingencies to be magnified or dampened. Here we test the hypothesis that competition magnifies the importance of early contingency in a sex-specific manner by comparing the developmental trajectories of genetically identical, free-living mice who either experienced high levels of territorial competition (males) or did not (females). We show that male territoriality results in a competitive feedback loop that magnifies the importance of early contingency and pushes individuals onto divergent, self-reinforcing life trajectories, while the same process appears absent in females. Our results indicate that the strength of sexual selection may be self-limiting, as within-sex competition increases the importance of early life contingency, thereby reducing the ability of selection to lead to evolution. They also demonstrate the potential for contingency to lead to dramatic differences in life outcomes, even in the absence of any underlying differences in ability ('merit').
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2
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Dellinger M, Steele SE, Sprockel E, Philip J, Pálsson A, Benhaïm D. Variation in personality shaped by evolutionary history, genotype and developmental plasticity in response to feeding modalities in the Arctic charr. Proc Biol Sci 2023; 290:20232302. [PMID: 38087921 PMCID: PMC10716646 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2023.2302] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2023] [Accepted: 11/16/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Animal personality has been shown to be influenced by both genetic and environmental factors and shaped by natural selection. Currently, little is known about mechanisms influencing the development of personality traits. This study examines the extent to which personality development is genetically influenced and/or environmentally responsive (plastic). We also investigated the role of evolutionary history, assessing whether personality traits could be canalized along a genetic and ecological divergence gradient. We tested the plastic potential of boldness in juveniles of five Icelandic Arctic charr morphs (Salvelinus alpinus), including two pairs of sympatric morphs, displaying various degrees of genetic and ecological divergence from the ancestral anadromous charr, split between treatments mimicking benthic versus pelagic feeding modalities. We show that differences in mean boldness are mostly affected by genetics. While the benthic treatment led to bolder individuals overall, the environmental effect was rather weak, suggesting that boldness lies under strong genetic influence with reduced plastic potential. Finally, we found hints of differences by morphs in boldness canalization through reduced variance and plasticity, and higher consistency in boldness within morphs. These findings provide new insights on how behavioural development may impact adaptive diversification.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marion Dellinger
- Department of Aquaculture and Fish Biology, Hólar University, Hólar, Iceland
- Institute of Life and Environmental Sciences, School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland
| | - Sarah E. Steele
- Institute of Life and Environmental Sciences, School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland
- Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa, Canada
| | - Evert Sprockel
- Department of Aquaculture and Fish Biology, Hólar University, Hólar, Iceland
- HAS University of Applied Sciences, 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands
| | - Joris Philip
- Department of Aquaculture and Fish Biology, Hólar University, Hólar, Iceland
- Scottish Centre for Ecology and the Natural Environment, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
| | - Arnar Pálsson
- Institute of Life and Environmental Sciences, School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland
| | - David Benhaïm
- Department of Aquaculture and Fish Biology, Hólar University, Hólar, Iceland
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3
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Stamps JA, Biro PA. Time-specific convergence and divergence in individual differences in behavior: Theory, protocols and analyzes. Ecol Evol 2023; 13:e10615. [PMID: 38034332 PMCID: PMC10682899 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.10615] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/21/2023] [Revised: 09/23/2023] [Accepted: 09/29/2023] [Indexed: 12/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Over the years, theoreticians and empiricists working in a wide range of disciplines, including physiology, ethology, psychology, and behavioral ecology, have suggested a variety of reasons why individual differences in behavior might change over time, such that different individuals become more similar (convergence) or less similar (divergence) to one another. Virtually none of these investigators have suggested that convergence or divergence will continue forever, instead proposing that these patterns will be restricted to particular periods over the course of a longer study. However, to date, few empiricists have documented time-specific convergence or divergence, in part because the experimental designs and statistical methods suitable for describing these patterns are not widely known. Here, we begin by reviewing an array of influential hypotheses that predict convergence or divergence in individual differences over timescales ranging from minutes to years, and that suggest how and why such patterns are likely to change over time (e.g., divergence followed by maintenance). Then, we describe experimental designs and statistical methods that can be used to determine if (and when) individual differences converged, diverged, or were maintained at the same level at specific periods during a longitudinal study. Finally, we describe why the concepts described herein help explain the discrepancy between what theoreticians and empiricists mean when they describe the "emergence" of individual differences or personality, how they might be used to study situations in which convergence and divergence patterns alternate over time, and how they might be used to study time-specific changes in other attributes of behavior, including individual differences in intraindividual variability (predictability), or genotypic differences in behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Judy A. Stamps
- Department of Evolution and EcologyUniversity of California, DavisDavisCaliforniaUSA
| | - Peter A. Biro
- School of Life and Environmental SciencesDeakin UniversityGeelongVictoriaAustralia
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4
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Pacheco XP. How consistently do personality attributes relate to an individual’s position within a social network: a comparison across groups of captive meerkats. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2020. [DOI: 10.1007/s00265-020-02880-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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Fisher DN, Pruitt JN. Insights from the study of complex systems for the ecology and evolution of animal populations. Curr Zool 2020; 66:1-14. [PMID: 32467699 PMCID: PMC7245006 DOI: 10.1093/cz/zoz016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2018] [Accepted: 04/02/2019] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
Populations of animals comprise many individuals, interacting in multiple contexts, and displaying heterogeneous behaviors. The interactions among individuals can often create population dynamics that are fundamentally deterministic yet display unpredictable dynamics. Animal populations can, therefore, be thought of as complex systems. Complex systems display properties such as nonlinearity and uncertainty and show emergent properties that cannot be explained by a simple sum of the interacting components. Any system where entities compete, cooperate, or interfere with one another may possess such qualities, making animal populations similar on many levels to complex systems. Some fields are already embracing elements of complexity to help understand the dynamics of animal populations, but a wider application of complexity science in ecology and evolution has not occurred. We review here how approaches from complexity science could be applied to the study of the interactions and behavior of individuals within animal populations and highlight how this way of thinking can enhance our understanding of population dynamics in animals. We focus on 8 key characteristics of complex systems: hierarchy, heterogeneity, self-organization, openness, adaptation, memory, nonlinearity, and uncertainty. For each topic we discuss how concepts from complexity theory are applicable in animal populations and emphasize the unique insights they provide. We finish by outlining outstanding questions or predictions to be evaluated using behavioral and ecological data. Our goal throughout this article is to familiarize animal ecologists with the basics of each of these concepts and highlight the new perspectives that they could bring to variety of subfields.
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Affiliation(s)
- David N Fisher
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
| | - Jonathan N Pruitt
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
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6
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Kane EA, Higham TE. Kinematic integration during prey capture varies among individuals but not ecological contexts in bluegill sunfish, Lepomis macrochirus (Perciformes: Centrarchidae). Biol J Linn Soc Lond 2020. [DOI: 10.1093/biolinnean/blaa026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022]
Abstract
Abstract
The general ability of components of an organism to work together to achieve a common goal has been termed integration and is often studied empirically by deconstructing organisms into component parts and quantifying covariation between them. Kinematic traits describing movement are useful for allowing organisms to respond to ecological contexts that vary over short time spans (milliseconds, minutes, etc.). Integration of these traits can contribute to the maintenance of the function of the whole organism, but it is unclear how modulation of component kinematic traits affects their integration. We examined the integration of swimming and feeding during capture of alternative prey types in bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus). Despite the expected modulation of kinematics, integration within individuals was inflexible across prey types, suggesting functional redundancy for solving a broad constraint. However, integration was variable among individuals, suggesting that individuals vary in their solutions for achieving whole-organism function and that this solution acts as a ‘top-down’ regulator of component traits, which provides insight into why kinematic variation is observed. Additionally, variation in kinematic integration among individuals could serve as an understudied target of environmental selection on prey capture, which is a necessary first step towards the observed divergence in integration among populations and species.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily A Kane
- Department of Biology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA
| | - Timothy E Higham
- Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA
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7
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Carlson BE, Tetzlaff SJ. Long‐term behavioral repeatability in wild adult and captive juvenile turtles (
Terrapene carolina
): Implications for personality development. Ethology 2020. [DOI: 10.1111/eth.13024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/26/2023]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Sasha J. Tetzlaff
- Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign Urbana Illinois
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Linneweber GA, Andriatsilavo M, Dutta SB, Bengochea M, Hellbruegge L, Liu G, Ejsmont RK, Straw AD, Wernet M, Hiesinger PR, Hassan BA. A neurodevelopmental origin of behavioral individuality in the Drosophila visual system. Science 2020; 367:1112-1119. [DOI: 10.1126/science.aaw7182] [Citation(s) in RCA: 60] [Impact Index Per Article: 15.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/18/2019] [Revised: 09/26/2019] [Accepted: 01/27/2020] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
The genome versus experience dichotomy has dominated understanding of behavioral individuality. By contrast, the role of nonheritable noise during brain development in behavioral variation is understudied. Using Drosophila melanogaster, we demonstrate a link between stochastic variation in brain wiring and behavioral individuality. A visual system circuit called the dorsal cluster neurons (DCN) shows nonheritable, interindividual variation in right/left wiring asymmetry and controls object orientation in freely walking flies. We show that DCN wiring asymmetry instructs an individual’s object responses: The greater the asymmetry, the better the individual orients toward a visual object. Silencing DCNs abolishes correlations between anatomy and behavior, whereas inducing DCN asymmetry suffices to improve object responses.
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Fisher DN, Lichtenstein JLL, Costa-Pereira R, Yeager J, Pruitt JN. Assessing the repeatability, robustness to disturbance, and parent-offspring colony resemblance of collective behavior. J Evol Biol 2019; 33:410-421. [PMID: 31821669 DOI: 10.1111/jeb.13576] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/17/2019] [Accepted: 12/04/2019] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Groups of animals possess phenotypes such as collective behaviour, which may determine the fitness of group members. However, the stability and robustness to perturbations of collective phenotypes in natural conditions is not established. Furthermore, whether group phenotypes are transmitted from parent to offspring groups with fidelity is required for understanding how selection on group phenotypes contributes to evolution, but parent-offspring resemblance at the group level is rarely estimated. We evaluated the repeatability, robustness to perturbation and parent-offspring resemblance of collective foraging aggressiveness in colonies of the social spider Anelosimus eximius. Among-colony differences in foraging aggressiveness were consistent over time but changed if the colony was perturbed through the removal of individuals or via individuals' removal and subsequent return. Offspring and parent colony behaviour were correlated at the phenotypic level, but only once the offspring colony had settled after being translocated, and the correlation overlapped with zero at the among-colony level. The parent-offspring resemblance was not driven by a shared elevation but could be due to other environmental factors. The behaviour of offspring colonies in a common garden laboratory setting was not correlated with the behaviour of the parent colony nor with the same colony's behaviour once it was returned to the field. The phenotypes of groups represent a potentially important tier of biological organization, and assessing the stability and heritability of such phenotypes helps us better understand their role in evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- David N Fisher
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
| | - James L L Lichtenstein
- Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California - Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
| | - Raul Costa-Pereira
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.,Departamento de Biologia Animal, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Justin Yeager
- Biodiversidad Medio Ambiente y Salud (BIOMAS), Direccion General de Investigacion, Universidad de las Américas, Quito, Ecuador
| | - Jonathan N Pruitt
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.,Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California - Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
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10
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Pérez Manrique L, Hudson R, Bánszegi O, Szenczi P. Individual differences in behavior and heart rate variability across the preweaning period in the domestic horse in response to an ecologically relevant stressor. Physiol Behav 2019; 210:112652. [PMID: 31419447 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2019.112652] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/24/2019] [Revised: 07/23/2019] [Accepted: 08/12/2019] [Indexed: 01/18/2023]
Abstract
The study of individual differences in behavior and physiology has attracted considerable interest among behavioral biologists. Important questions include how early in life such differences emerge and to what extent they remain stable across development. Due to the demanding nature of longitudinal studies, there is still a lack of information on this in mammals, especially in large, long-lived species. Our aim in this study was to look for stable individual differences in behavior and physiology during early development in the domestic horse and for correlations between the two parameters. We tested 30 Azteca-breed foals kept under standard conditions by briefly separating them from their mother in four repeated tests beginning at the first postnatal week until the foals were six months old, before they were weaned. Individual differences in behavior and heart rate variability of foals in response to brief maternal separations were consistent and were correlated from a very early age. These findings contribute to an understanding of the expression of individual differences in physiology and behavior from a developmental perspective and may help in the future selection of horses for functional contexts that require different levels of reactivity, thereby contributing to horse welfare and to human safety and economy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucía Pérez Manrique
- Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia, Departamento de Etología, Fauna Silvestre y Animales de Laboratorio, Av. Universidad 3000, Edificio 6. Delegación Coyoacán, Col. Ciudad Universitaria, 04510 Ciudad de México, Mexico
| | - Robyn Hudson
- Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Laboratorio Psicobiología del Desarrollo, Av. Universidad 3000, Edificio B. Delegación Coyoacán, Col. Ciudad Universitaria, 04510 Ciudad de México, Mexico.
| | - Oxána Bánszegi
- Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Laboratorio Psicobiología del Desarrollo, Av. Universidad 3000, Edificio B. Delegación Coyoacán, Col. Ciudad Universitaria, 04510 Ciudad de México, Mexico
| | - Péter Szenczi
- Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatría Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Unidad Psicopatología y Desarrollo, Calz. México-Xochimilco 101, 14370, Tlalpan, Ciudad de México, Mexico; Cátedras CONACyT, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Ciudad de México, Mexico.
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11
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Kok EMA, Burant JB, Dekinga A, Manche P, Saintonge D, Piersma T, Mathot KJ. Within-Individual Canalization Contributes to Age-Related Increases in Trait Repeatability: A Longitudinal Experiment in Red Knots. Am Nat 2019; 194:455-469. [DOI: 10.1086/704593] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
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12
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Laskowski KL, Doran C, Bierbach D, Krause J, Wolf M. Naturally clonal vertebrates are an untapped resource in ecology and evolution research. Nat Ecol Evol 2019; 3:161-169. [PMID: 30692622 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-018-0775-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/28/2018] [Accepted: 11/29/2018] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Science requires replication. The development of many cloned or isogenic model organisms is a testament to this. But researchers are reluctant to use these traditional animal model systems for certain questions in evolution or ecology research, because of concerns over relevance or inbreeding. It has largely been overlooked that there are a substantial number of vertebrate species that reproduce clonally in nature. Here we highlight how use of these naturally evolved, phenotypically complex animals can push the boundaries of traditional experimental design and contribute to answering fundamental questions in the fields of ecology and evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kate L Laskowski
- Department of Biology & Ecology of Fishes, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology & Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany.
| | - Carolina Doran
- Department of Biology & Ecology of Fishes, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology & Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany
| | - David Bierbach
- Department of Biology & Ecology of Fishes, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology & Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany
| | - Jens Krause
- Department of Biology & Ecology of Fishes, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology & Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany.,Faculty of Life Sciences, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Max Wolf
- Department of Biology & Ecology of Fishes, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology & Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany
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13
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Behavioral repeatability and choice performance in wild free-flying nectarivorous bats (Glossophaga commissarisi). Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2019. [DOI: 10.1007/s00265-019-2637-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
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