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You eat what you are: personality-dependent filial cannibalism in a fish with paternal care.

ABSTRACT: Many animal parents invest heavily to ensure offspring survival, yet some eventually consume some or all of their very own young. This so-called filial cannibalism is known from a wide range of taxa, but its adaptive benefit remains largely unclear. The extent to which parents cannibalize their broods varies substantially not only between species, but also between individuals, indicating that intrinsic behavioral differences, or animal personalities, might constitute a relevant proximate trigger for filial cannibalism. Using a marine fish with extensive paternal care, the common goby (Pomatoschistus microps), we investigated the influence of animal personality on filial cannibalism by assessing (1) behavioral consistency across a breeding and a nonbreeding context; (2) correlations between different breeding (egg fanning; filial cannibalism) and nonbreeding (activity) behaviors, and, in a separate experiment; (3) whether previously established personality scores affect filial cannibalism levels. We found consistent individual differences in activity across contexts. Partial filial cannibalism was independent of egg fanning but correlated strongly with activity, where active males cannibalized more eggs than less active males. This pattern was strong initially but vanished as the breeding season progressed. The incidence of whole clutch filial cannibalism increased with activity and clutch size. Our findings indicate that filial cannibalism cannot generally be adjusted independently of male personality and is thus phenotypically less plastic than typically assumed. The present work stresses the multidimensional interaction between animal personality, individual plasticity and the environment in shaping filial cannibalism.

SUBMITTER: Vallon M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4775538 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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You eat what you are: personality-dependent filial cannibalism in a fish with paternal care.

Vallon Martin M Grom Christina C Kalb Nadine N Sprenger Dennis D Anthes Nils N Lindström Kai K Heubel Katja U KU

Ecology and evolution 20160129 5

Many animal parents invest heavily to ensure offspring survival, yet some eventually consume some or all of their very own young. This so-called filial cannibalism is known from a wide range of taxa, but its adaptive benefit remains largely unclear. The extent to which parents cannibalize their broods varies substantially not only between species, but also between individuals, indicating that intrinsic behavioral differences, or animal personalities, might constitute a relevant proximate trigger ...[more]

PMID: 27087921

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Project description:Filial piety is a Confucian concept derived from Chinese culture, which advocates a set of moral norms, values, and practices of respect and caring for one's parents. According to the dual-factor model of filial piety, reciprocal and authoritarian filial piety are two dimensions of filial piety. Reciprocal filial piety is concerned with sincere affection toward one's parent and a longstanding positive parent-child relationship, while authoritarian filial piety is about obedience to social obligations to one's parent, often by suppressing one's own wishes to conform the demands of the parent. The primary aim of this study is to investigate the moderating effect of culture on the relationships between filial piety and palliative care knowledge. The secondary aim is to investigate whether filial piety is a universal construct across Singaporean and Australian cultures. A total of 508 participants living in Singapore and Australia were surveyed between May and October 2020. The final sample comprised of 406 participants, with 224 Singaporeans and 182 Australians. There were 289 females (71.1%), 115 males (28.3%), and two unspecified gender (0.6%) in the sample, with an average age of 27.27 years (SD = 9.79, range = 18-73). Results indicated a significant effect of culture on authoritarian filial piety and palliative care knowledge. Singaporeans showed higher authoritarian filial piety and higher palliative care knowledge than Australians. However, no effect of culture was found on reciprocal filial piety. Overall, no significant correlation existed between palliative care knowledge and reciprocal filial piety and authoritarian filial piety. For Singaporeans, a weak negative correlation was found between palliative care knowledge and authoritarian filial piety. In contrast, Australians and Singaporeans indicated a positive, moderate correlation between reciprocal and authoritarian filial piety. Further, culture moderated the relationship between authoritarian filial piety and palliative care knowledge. High authoritarian filial piety was associated with increased palliative care knowledge among Australians, while high authoritarian filial piety was associated with decreased palliative care knowledge among Singaporeans. The results support the conceptualization of filial piety as a possible psychological universal construct. In addition, the results point out an important implication that public health programs should target the appropriate filial piety types to enhance palliative care knowledge among Singaporeans and Australians.

Project description:BackgroundBehavioural phenotypes vary within and among individuals. While early-life experiences have repeatedly been proposed to underpin interactions between these two hierarchical levels, the environmental factors causing such effects remain under-studied. We tested whether an individual's diet affected both its body composition, average behaviour (thereby causing among-individual variation or 'personality') and within-individual variability in behaviour and body weight (thereby causing among-individual differences in residual within-individual variance or 'stability'), using the Southern field cricket Gryllus bimaculatus as a model. We further asked whether effects of diet on the expression of these variance components were sex-specific.MethodsManipulating both juvenile and adult diet in a full factorial design, individuals were put, in each life-stage, on a diet that was either relatively high in carbohydrates or relatively high in protein. We subsequently measured the expression of multiple behavioural (exploration, aggression and mating activity) and morphological traits (body weight and lipid mass) during adulthood.ResultsDietary history affected both average phenotype and level of within-individual variability: males raised as juveniles on high-protein diets were heavier, more aggressive, more active during mating, and behaviourally less stable, than conspecifics raised on high-carbohydrate diets. Females preferred more protein in their diet compared to males, and dietary history affected average phenotype and within-individual variability in a sex-specific manner: individuals raised on high-protein diets were behaviourally less stable in their aggressiveness but this effect was only present in males. Diet also influenced individual differences in male body weight, but within-individual variance in female body weight.DiscussionThis study thereby provides experimental evidence that dietary history explains both heterogeneous residual within-individual variance (i.e., individual variation in 'behavioural stability') and individual differences in average behaviour (i.e., 'personality'), though dietary effects were notably trait-specific. These findings call for future studies integrating proximate and ultimate perspectives on the role of diet in the evolution of repeatedly expressed traits, such as behaviour and body weight.

Dataset Information

You eat what you are: personality-dependent filial cannibalism in a fish with paternal care.

Publications

You eat what you are: personality-dependent filial cannibalism in a fish with paternal care.

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