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      Repeatability, heritability, and age-dependence of seasonal plasticity in aggressiveness in a wild passerine bird

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      Journal of Animal Ecology
      Wiley-Blackwell

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          Abstract

          Labile characters allow individuals to flexibly adjust their phenotype to changes in environmental conditions. There is growing evidence that individuals can differ both in average expression and level of plasticity in this type of character. Both of these aspects are studied in conjunction within a reaction norm framework. Theoreticians have investigated the factors promoting variation in reaction norm intercepts (average phenotype) and slopes (level of plasticity) of a key labile character: behaviour. A general prediction from their work is that selection will favour the evolution of repeatable individual variation in level of plasticity only under certain ecological conditions. While factors promoting individual repeatability of plasticity have thus been identified, empirical estimates of this phenomenon are largely lacking for wild populations. We assayed aggressiveness of individual male great tits (Parus major) twice during their egg-laying stage and twice during their egg-incubation stage to quantify each male's level of seasonal plasticity. This procedure was applied during six consecutive years; all males breeding in our plots during those years were assayed, resulting in repeated measures of individual reaction norms for any individual breeding in multiple years. We quantified among- and within-individual variation in reaction norm components, allowing us to estimate repeatability of seasonal plasticity. Using social pedigree information, we further partitioned reaction norm components into their additive genetic and permanent environmental counterparts. Cross-year individual repeatability for the intercepts (average aggressiveness) and slopes (level of seasonal plasticity) of the aggressiveness reaction norms were 0·574 and 0·516 respectively. The mean of the posterior distributions suggested modest heritabilities (h2  = 0·260 for intercepts; h2  = 0·266 for slopes), but these estimates were relatively uncertain. Males behaved more aggressively in areas with higher breeding densities, and became less aggressive and less plastic with increasing age; plasticity thus varied within individuals and was multidimensional in nature. This empirical study quantified cross-year individual repeatability, heritability and age-related reversible plasticity in behaviour. Acknowledging such patterns of multi-level variation is important not only for testing behavioural ecology theory concerning the evolution of repeatable differences in behavioural plasticity but also for predicting how reversible plasticity may evolve in natural populations.

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          Most cited references38

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          The ecology of individuals: incidence and implications of individual specialization.

          Most empirical and theoretical studies of resource use and population dynamics treat conspecific individuals as ecologically equivalent. This simplification is only justified if interindividual niche variation is rare, weak, or has a trivial effect on ecological processes. This article reviews the incidence, degree, causes, and implications of individual-level niche variation to challenge these simplifications. Evidence for individual specialization is available for 93 species distributed across a broad range of taxonomic groups. Although few studies have quantified the degree to which individuals are specialized relative to their population, between-individual variation can sometimes comprise the majority of the population's niche width. The degree of individual specialization varies widely among species and among populations, reflecting a diverse array of physiological, behavioral, and ecological mechanisms that can generate intrapopulation variation. Finally, individual specialization has potentially important ecological, evolutionary, and conservation implications. Theory suggests that niche variation facilitates frequency-dependent interactions that can profoundly affect the population's stability, the amount of intraspecific competition, fitness-function shapes, and the population's capacity to diversify and speciate rapidly. Our collection of case studies suggests that individual specialization is a widespread but underappreciated phenomenon that poses many important but unanswered questions.
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            Behavioural reaction norms: animal personality meets individual plasticity

            Recent studies in the field of behavioural ecology have revealed intriguing variation in behaviour within single populations. Increasing evidence suggests that individual animals differ in their average level of behaviour displayed across a range of contexts (animal 'personality'), and in their responsiveness to environmental variation (plasticity), and that these phenomena can be considered complementary aspects of the individual phenotype. How should this complex variation be studied? Here, we outline how central ideas in behavioural ecology and quantitative genetics can be combined within a single framework based on the concept of 'behavioural reaction norms'. This integrative approach facilitates analysis of phenomena usually studied separately in terms of personality and plasticity, thereby enhancing understanding of their adaptive nature. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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              The behavioural ecology of personality: consistent individual differences from an adaptive perspective

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Journal of Animal Ecology
                J Anim Ecol
                Wiley-Blackwell
                00218790
                March 2017
                March 2017
                : 86
                : 2
                : 227-238
                Article
                10.1111/1365-2656.12621
                27973682
                4ef029b7-30d9-4a22-b4dd-5879259f03a0
                © 2017

                http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/tdm_license_1

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