Strong personalities, not social niches, drive individual differences in social behaviours in sticklebacks.

摘要: Understanding the mechanisms responsible for consistent individual differences in behaviour is a recent challenge behavioural ecology. Although theory rapidly developing this area, there are few empirical tests. There at least two hypotheses to explain why individuals behave differently from one another dynamic social environment. The niche specialization hypothesis proposes that repeated interactions generate behaviour. type an individual's reflects its type. We tested these by manipulating opportunity groups of threespine stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus, and measuring types same three contexts: when novel environment, presented with associate conspecifics confronted intruder. found no evidence increased between-individual variation foraging Instead, individuals' was related their type, specifically shoaling In addition, members group strongly influenced group's average Together, results do not support dynamics within generates they suggest reverse: drive group-level dynamics.