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Evolutionary quantitative genetics of behavioral responses to handling in a wild passerine.

ABSTRACT: Behavioral differences between individuals that are consistent over time characterize animal personality. The existence of such consistency contrasts to the expectation based on classical behavioral theory that facultative behavior maximizes individual fitness. Here, we study two personality traits (aggression and breath rate during handling) in a wild population of blue tits during 2007-2012. Handling aggression and breath rate were moderately heritable (h (2)?=?0.35 and 0.20, respectively) and not genetically correlated (r A?=?0.06) in adult blue tits, which permits them to evolve independently. Reciprocal cross-fostering (2007-2010) showed that offspring reared by more aggressive males have a higher probability to recruit. In addition, offspring reared by pairs mated assortatively for handling aggression had a higher recruitment probability, which is the first evidence that both parents' personalities influence their reproductive success in the wild in a manner independent of their genetic effects. Handling aggression was not subjected to survival selection in either sex, but slow-breathing females had a higher annual probability of survival as revealed by capture-mark-recapture analysis. We find no evidence for temporal fluctuations in selection, and thus conclude that directional selection (via different fitness components) acts on these two heritable personality traits. Our findings show that blue tit personality has predictable fitness consequences, but that facultative adjustment of an individual's personality to match the fitness maximum is likely constrained by the genetic architecture of personality. In the face of directional selection, the presence of heritable variation in personality suggests the existence of a trade-off that we have not identified yet.

SUBMITTER: Class B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3936389 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Evolutionary quantitative genetics of behavioral responses to handling in a wild passerine.

Class Barbara B Kluen Edward E Brommer Jon E JE

Ecology and evolution 20140120 4

Behavioral differences between individuals that are consistent over time characterize animal personality. The existence of such consistency contrasts to the expectation based on classical behavioral theory that facultative behavior maximizes individual fitness. Here, we study two personality traits (aggression and breath rate during handling) in a wild population of blue tits during 2007-2012. Handling aggression and breath rate were moderately heritable (h (2) = 0.35 and 0.20, respectively) and ...[more]

PMID: 24634727

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Project description:1. There is a growing number of empirical reports of environmental change simultaneously influencing population dynamics, life history and quantitative characters. We do not have a well-developed understanding of links between the dynamics of these quantities. 2. Insight into the joint dynamics of populations, quantitative characters and life history can be gained by deriving a model that allows the calculation of fundamental quantities that underpin population ecology, evolutionary biology and life history. The parameterization and analysis of such a model for a specific system can be used to predict how a population will respond to environmental change. 3. Age-stage-structured models can be constructed from character-demography associations that describe age-specific relationships between the character and: (i) survival; (ii) fertility; (iii) ontogenetic development of the character among survivors; and (iv) the distribution of reproductive allocation. 4. These models can be used to calculate a wide range of useful biological quantities including population growth and structure; terms in the Price equation including selection differentials; estimates of biometric heritabilities; and life history descriptors including generation time. We showcase the method through parameterization of a model using data from a well-studied population of Soay sheep Ovis aries. 5. Perturbation analysis is used to investigate how the quantities listed in summary point 4 change as each parameter in each character-demography function is altered. 6. A wide range of joint dynamics of life history, quantitative characters and population growth can be generated in response to changes in different character-demography associations; we argue this explains the diversity of observations on the consequences of environmental change from studies of free-living populations. 7. The approach we describe has the potential to explain within and between species patterns in quantitative characters, life history and population dynamics.

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Evolutionary quantitative genetics of behavioral responses to handling in a wild passerine.

Publications

Evolutionary quantitative genetics of behavioral responses to handling in a wild passerine.

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