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Bigger male Eurasian nuthatches (Sitta europaea) behave more aggressively in playback-simulated territorial intrusion

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Abstract

In animals, personality (or temperament) is associated with alternative response patterns in reaction to a potential stressor or challenging situation. Aggressiveness is one of the basal behavioral axes of variation of personality. Consistent individual differences in this behavior may arise due to genetic effects or as a result of irreversible developmental plasticity. Here, we used playback experiments with a songbird to ask whether aggressiveness varies according to body size, body condition and age of the individuals. In passerine birds, song is very important in territorial defense along with aggressive behavior. We found that the male acoustic response was not influenced by body size and body condition in playback-simulated territorial intrusion, while the behavioral response was. Bigger males behaved more aggressively as they performed more flyovers, came closer to the loudspeaker, and displayed more intensively. Body size did not depend on age in nuthatches and was individually repeatable between years. Therefore, our study added to accumulating evidence that individuals show consistent differences along the aggressiveness axis of behavioral variation, and these differences apparently remains constant through an individual’s life.

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Data availability

Dataset and audio-recordings are available upon request.

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Acknowledgements

The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (grant number 22-24-00001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Comparative Ethology and Biocommunication, A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 119071, Russian Federation

    Mikhail Diatroptov & Alexey Opaev

Authors
  1. Mikhail Diatroptov
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  2. Alexey Opaev
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Contributions

Both authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection was performed by Mikhail Diatroptov. Alexey Opaev analyzed the data and wrote manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexey Opaev.

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Ethical approval

All applicable international, national, and/ institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed. All work complied in accordance with the Federal law of Russian Federation No. 498-Ф3 ‘On responsible treatment of animals’.

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Fig. S1 Map of the study plot. Red circles show active nest cavities of nuthatches in spring 2021 (TIF 2005 KB)

10164_2023_784_MOESM3_ESM.tif

Fig. S2 Spectrograms of TR-1 songs used by 5 males in the study population, and TR-1 song downloaded from xeno-canto and used to prepare playback stimulus (TIF 3198 KB)

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Diatroptov, M., Opaev, A. Bigger male Eurasian nuthatches (Sitta europaea) behave more aggressively in playback-simulated territorial intrusion. J Ethol 41, 185–193 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-023-00784-3

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