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Spatiotemporal variation of behavior and repeatability in a long-lived turtle

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Abstract

Animal personalities represent repeatable behavioral differences exhibited by individuals in a population. Variation in personality traits across individuals is an increasingly recognized mechanism for species adaptation over time and across different contexts. In long-lived ectotherms, such as turtles, variation in personality is expected to be a major component of how they persist in habitats over their long lifespans, yet little information exists on the sources and magnitude of this variation. Here, we estimated short- and long-term variation in behavior type and repeatability of three personality traits (boldness, activity, and exploration) in wild, free-ranging ornate box turtles (Terrapene ornata). In addition, we contrasted the short-term variation in behavior types across four distinct populations. From 628 trials involving 174 individual turtles, we found consistently high repeatability in behavior types within and across years. Likewise, individual behavior types were highly repeatable within all four populations, even across several years. Despite such repeatability, we detected both geographic and temporal variation in mean differences for these otherwise stable behaviors. To our knowledge, this is the first study to document behavioral types in ornate box turtles specifically and the first to characterize the behavioral axes of activity and exploration in box turtles generally.

Significance statement

Chelonians, which are a globally imperiled taxonomic group, have had relatively little personality research relative to other groups, yet they display the hallmarks of animal personality traits such as consistency in behavior types and evidence of among-individual variation, particularly in terms of ranging and movement. We characterized three axes of personality in four populations of ornate box turtles over multiple years. We found that individual turtles exhibited repeatable behaviors both across populations and through time, yet populations differed consistently in mean values for these traits. Geographical differences among populations were more important in shaping behavioral variation than body mass, body length, or sex. Our findings indicate that turtles have distinct personalities with short- and long-term repeatability for each behavior examined and at least multi-year repeatability for boldness and exploratory behaviors.

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Data availability

Data used in analyses are available as supplemental material.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the numerous volunteers that assisted with various aspects of this project over the years and at each site. We would like to thank the dozens of private landowners that have permitted us to use their properties to conduct our study, and the past researchers who inaugurated and continued the box turtle work in Iowa. We also acknowledge the institutions that allowed us to conduct these behavioral trials including Cedar Point Biological Station, Washburn University, Baker University, and Coe College. Lastly, we thank Gwendolyn Bachman for her guidance to BMR during his dissertation and support through the development and carrying out of this project.

Funding

This work was supported by Coe College and Washburn University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Washburn University, Topeka, KS, 66621, USA

    Benjamin M. Reed, Kaylyn Hobelman, Aubrey Gauntt, Abigail Trautman, Patience Wagner, Samantha Kim, Chelsea Armstrong, Samuel Wagner, Amelia Weller, Katie Brighton, Colin Nelson & Rodrigo J. Mercader

  2. Department of Biology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68588, USA

    Madison Schwenka & Shelby Bloom

  3. Department of Biology, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, IA, 52402, USA

    Farah Suboh, Cameron Kolthoff, Sangai Dukuly & Daniel F. Hughes

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  1. Benjamin M. Reed
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Benjamin M. Reed or Daniel F. Hughes.

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Ethics approval

All research was conducted following approved IACUC protocols from both Washburn University (#10148BR) and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (#1823). Animals were handled with scientific collectors permits from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (#SC1438), Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (#SC-075–2022), and Nebraska Game and Parks Commission (#1352). The use of animals adhered to the guidelines set forth by the Herpetological Animal Care and Use Committee of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Communicated by S. Joy Downes

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Benjamin M. Reed and Daniel F. Hughes are co-senior authors.

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Reed, B.M., Hobelman, K., Gauntt, A. et al. Spatiotemporal variation of behavior and repeatability in a long-lived turtle. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 77, 88 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-023-03360-4

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