How social environments affect selection on animal behavioural types

• Applicant: Petri Niemelä, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Sensory and Behavioural Biology ; Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 243242558

Over the last decade, behavioural ecologists have become increasingly interested in consistent behavioural variation among individuals across time and contexts, called animal personalities in the behavioural ecology literature. Recent meta-analyses have revealed that consistent behavioural differences among individuals are general characteristics of animal populations in nature. In other words, different behavioural types coexist within populations. The social environment, i.e. interactions between conspecifics, represents one of the most dynamic environmental forces that individuals face, because the individuals own behaviour as well as conspecifics behaviours jointly defines the frequency and intensity of the interactions and thus, selection induced by the social environment. Overall fitness of an individual is expected to depend, not only on its own behavioural type, but also on the interaction between its own behavioural type and the composition of behavioural types in the population (i.e. its social environment). Surprisingly, despite the role of the social environment in competition, co-operation and mating, it has so far been largely overlooked and abovementioned predictions have not really been put to the test. In this project, I aim to identify the proximate ecological fitness mechanisms and the ultimate fitness consequences of the interaction between the social composition of a population and behavioural types of individuals. By manipulating the social environment, I aim to study experimentally in natural populations, how the composition of social environment affects an individuals life-time reproductive success, and whether allocation to different behavioural tasks depends on the interaction between an individuals behavioural type and the characteristics of other individuals in its population. I intend to quantify behavioural types by measuring general activity patterns in nature using electronic surveillance system. The proposed study model is the field cricket, Gryllus campestris. Crickets of this genus, such as G. integer, G. bimaculatus, and G. campestris, have been widely used as a model organism in sexual selection, life-history, and behavioural (also animal personality) studies including my own work, and therefore are ideal for addressing the proposed questions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Persons: Professor Dr. Niels Dingemanse; Professor Dr. Bart Willem Kempenaers