Abstract
Animals exhibit considerable and consistent among-individual variation in cognitive abilities, even within a population. Recent studies have attempted to address this variation using insights from the field of animal personality. Generally, it is predicted that animals with “faster” personalities (bolder, explorative, and neophilic) should exhibit faster but less flexible learning. However, the empirical evidence for a link between cognitive style and personality is mixed. One possible reason for such conflicting results may be that personality–cognition covariance changes along ecological conditions, a hypothesis that has rarely been investigated so far. In this study, we tested the effect of habitat complexity on multiple aspects of animal personality and cognition, and how this influenced their relationship, in five populations of the Aegean wall lizard (Podarcis erhardii). Overall, lizards from both habitat types did not differ in average levels of personality or cognition, with the exception that lizards from more complex habitats performed better on a spatial learning task. Nevertheless, we found an intricate interplay between ecology, cognition, and personality, as behavioral associations were often habitat- but also year-dependent. In general, behavioral covariance was either independent of habitat, or found exclusively in the simple, open environments. Our results highlight that valuable insights may be gained by taking ecological variation into account while studying the link between personality and cognition.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Kinsey Brock for her help with catching lizards, Colin Donihue & Menelia Vasilopoulou-Kampitsi for advice regarding fieldwork, Aris Deimezis and his students for help with care of the animals, and Chryssa Economou for assistance during the experiments. The research was funded by the Research Foundation–Flanders (FWO) through a Ph.D. fellowship (grant ID: 1144118N) and a travel grant (ID: V416719N), and by the Royal Belgian Zoological Society via a travel grant (all to GDM).
Funding
The research was funded by the Research Foundation–Flanders (FWO) through a Ph.D. fellowship (grant ID: 1144118 N) and a travel grant (ID: V416719N), and by the Royal Belgian Zoological Society via a travel grant (all to GDM).
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All authors contributed to study conception and design. GDM collected and analyzed the data and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors provided feedback on previous versions of the manuscript and approved the final version.
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Experiments were approved by the Ethical Committee of the University of Antwerp (file ID: 2017–67) and permits were issued by the Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy (Permit Nrs: Ω6314653П9-TBΞ and 7ΖΠΡ4653Π8-Ε76). All experiments were in accordance with national legislation. Lizards were used for a follow-up experiment and thereafter released at site of capture.
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De Meester, G., Pafilis, P. & Van Damme, R. Bold and bright: shy and supple? The effect of habitat type on personality–cognition covariance in the Aegean wall lizard (Podarcis erhardii). Anim Cogn 25, 745–767 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-021-01587-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-021-01587-0