Short- and long-term repeatability of docility in the roe deer: sex and age matter
Section snippets
Ethical Note
All captures and handling were done in accordance with Swedish and European laws for animal welfare. All procedures were approved by the Ethical Committee for Animal Experiments in Uppsala, Sweden (permit numbers C302/12 and C289/09) and adhered to legal and ethical requirements for research on wild animals in Sweden and the European Union. Roe deer captures in our study site have been performed since 1973, and all animals used for this study were captured in the context of a long-term ongoing
Variation in Docility
The handling scores varied between 0 and 4 with a mean ± SD of 1.62 ± 0.95 for the whole data set (Appendix Fig. A2). Estimated mean docility was between score 1 and 2 with a high standard deviation for all the four age–sex categories (mean docility ± SD = 1.53 ± 0.90 for juvenile females, 1.71 ± 0.95 for juveniles males, 1.68 ± 0.94 for adult females and 1.26 ± 0.95 for adult males; see Fig. 2 for the numbers of scores and individuals for each category). The model with the lowest AICc included a two-way
Discussion
We investigated behavioural repeatability in an unusually comprehensive data set composed of a large number of individual roe deer for which behaviour at capture was repeatedly assessed in the wild over a reasonably long time period. Docility, a behavioural trait that we indexed through individual handling scores at capture, did not differ substantially between age classes, but female adults tended to be somewhat less docile than males. Importantly, this behavioural trait was found to be
Acknowledgments
C.V. and P.K. are both last coauthors: C.V. obtained the grant that financed L.D. and J.F.L. and contributed substantially to the research project, P.K. designed the study and organized the long-term data collection. C.V., L.D. and J.F.L. were funded by the PATCH RPDOC ANR project (ANR-12-PDOC-0017-01) awarded to C.V. from the French National Research Agency. This study was supported by the PATCH RPDOC ANR project. The field study was supported by grants from the Swedish Association for Hunting
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2023, Animal BehaviourCitation Excerpt :These results are reminiscent of prior human studies showing that multiple personality traits are more individually consistent in middle age as compared to during development (Lucas & Donnellan, 2011; Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000; Roberts & Mroczek, 2008; Terracciano et al., 2005; Wortman et al., 2012). This has also been narrowly studied in animal populations showing behaviour traits are more stable in adults than in juveniles (Heath-Lange et al., 1999; Sinn et al., 2008; Stevenson-Hinde et al., 1980; Sussman & Ha, 2011), although a few studies show the opposite effect (Bell et al., 2009; Debeffe et al., 2015; Gyuris et al., 2012; Petelle et al., 2013; Wilson & Krause, 2012). This age-related variation in repeatability may depend on the behaviours measured, the variability of the conditions and the species being studied (Cabrera et al., 2021).
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2022, Animal BehaviourCitation Excerpt :Our lizards displayed repeatable individual variation in exploration PC1 (general exploratory behaviour) across years (Radj = 0.280). This result corroborates previous findings that variation in personality can be consistent over long and considerable portions of a species life (eastern box turtles, Terrapene carolina: Carlson et al., 2020; roe deer, Capreolus capreolus: Debeffe et al., 2015; sleepy lizards, Tiliqua rugosa: Payne et al., 2021; zebra fishes, Danio rerio: Thomson et al., 2020; European starlings, Sturnus vulgaris: Thys, Eens, et al., 2017; zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata: Wuerz & Krüger, 2014), although not always (collared flycatchers, Ficedula albicollis: Garamszegi et al., 2015). In contrast, exploration PC1 did not show significant heritability (h2 = 0.031).
Boldness-mediated habitat use tactics and reproductive success in a wild large herbivore
2018, Animal BehaviourCitation Excerpt :We then calculated an overall boldness score as the mean of these six behavioural components, ranging from 0 to 1, where 1 indicates a bold animal and 0 a shy animal (see Bonnot et al., 2015 for a similar approach). This index is highly repeatable for a given individual (i.e. repeatability of 0.47, 95% confidence intervals [0.24–0.66] for females in our study population (Bonnot, 2018); see also Debeffe et al., 2015 in Sweden, who reported a repeatability of 0.41 [0.30–0.52]). The boldness score has also been shown to be linked to the physiological stress response (i.e. positively correlated with the cortisol response, see Bonnot, Bergvall, Jarnemo, & Kjellander, 2018, and with body temperature and haematocrit level, see Monestier et al., 2016), and has previously been used to index boldness in roe deer (Bonnot et al., 2015; Debeffe et al., 2014; Monestier et al., 2015).
To be so bold: boldness is repeatable and related to within individual behavioural variability in North Island robins
2017, Behavioural ProcessesCitation Excerpt :The repeatability value we found in this study was also very high for a behavioural trait as a meta-analysis has shown that the average level of repeatability across all behavioural traits was ∼0.35 (Bell et al., 2009). Short inter-trial interval has been shown to increase repeatability values (Bell et al., 2009; David et al., 2012; Garamszegi et al., 2015; but see Debeffe et al., 2015) and so might have contributed to our high repeatability. Our study found that most variable individuals in the population had about 7.5 times the amount of variability compared with the individual with the least variable behaviour (maximum riSD to minimum riSD).
Neophobia is linked to behavioural and haematological indicators of stress in captive roe deer
2017, Animal BehaviourCitation Excerpt :The behavioural score was then calculated as the sum of the scores for these three behavioural items to obtain a stress profile gradient ranging from 0 to 2, with 2 indicating individuals with the highest behavioural response to capture. Both the behavioural score and the biochemical parameters have been shown to be highly repeatable for a given individual in a previous study on the same captive roe deer population (Monestier et al., 2016) and in the wild (behavioural score only: Debeffe et al., 2015). Furthermore, the behavioural score indexes one component of a behavioural syndrome that is linked to life history traits in this species (Bonnot et al., 2015; Debeffe et al., 2014; Monestier et al., 2015, 2016).