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Heritable and experiential effects on boldness in a tropical poeciliid

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Abstract

Consistent differences in human behaviour are often explained with reference to personality traits. Recent evidence suggests that similar traits are widespread across the entire animal kingdom and that they may have substantial fitness consequences. One of the major components of personality is the shyness–boldness continuum. Little is known about the relative contributions of genes and the environment in the development of boldness in wild animal populations. Here, we bred wild-caught fish (Brachyraphis episcopi) collected from regions of high- and low-predation pressure, reared their offspring in the laboratory under varying conditions and tested boldness utilising an open-field paradigm. First-generation laboratory-reared fish showed similar behaviour to their wild parents suggesting that boldness has a heritable component. In addition, repeated chasing with a net increased boldness in both high- and low-predation offspring, showing that boldness is also heavily influenced by life experiences. Differences between males and females were also sustained in the laboratory-reared generation indicating that sex differences in boldness are also heritable. We discuss these results with reference to the potential underlying genetic and hormonal mechanisms as well as the environmental influences that may be responsible for expression of boldness in wild animals.

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Acknowledgement

We thank the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute for their continued support, The Darwin Workshop and Felicity Brown for her help in collecting the fish. This work was funded by NERC grant no. NER/A/S/01/00608, and experiments conducted herein were conducted in accordance with the Guidelines for the Treatment of Animals in Behavioural Research and Teaching.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH9 3JT, UK

    Fiona Burgess & Victoria A. Braithwaite

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

    Culum Brown

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  1. Culum Brown
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  2. Fiona Burgess
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  3. Victoria A. Braithwaite
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Correspondence to Culum Brown.

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Communicated by: T. Czeschlik

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Brown, C., Burgess, F. & Braithwaite, V.A. Heritable and experiential effects on boldness in a tropical poeciliid. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 62, 237–243 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-007-0458-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-007-0458-3

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