Behavioral Carryovers, Tradeoffs and Performance Correlations Across Situations

University Of California-Davis, Davis CA

Investigators

Abstract

The central goals of this project are to develop and apply new statistical techniques to examine behavioral correlations across different contexts, and their effects on individual performance (survival, feeding rate, mating success) across contexts. For example, for aggression level, although all individuals alter their aggression levels depending on the situation, do the same individuals tend to be more aggressive than others across a range of situations? If so, how do these consistent aggression levels influence performance in the different situations? Experiments will examine behavioral and performance correlations: 1) across social and ecological contexts (different densities, sex ratios and levels of predation risk); 2) over a lifetime (correlating juvenile versus adult behavior); and 3) across genders (between male and female siblings). Experiments will focus on an insect, Aquarius remigis, that is ideal for generating the large amounts of data required to illustrate the new methods. Although it is clear that humans and some well-studied mammals exhibit correlated behaviors across contexts (i.e., personality types or behavioral syndromes), it is only now becoming clear that parallel behavioral correlations occur in other animals. The techniques and insights generated by this project should advance our understanding of the ecological and evolutionary significance of behavioral correlations.