Browsing by Author "van Dongen, Wouter F. D."

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    Geographic Variation in the Association between Exploratory Behavior and Physiology in Rufous-Collared Sparrows
    (2012) Maldonado, Karin; van Dongen, Wouter F. D.; Vasquez, Rodrigo A.; Sabat, Pablo
    Increasing research has attempted to clarify the links between animal personality and physiology. However, the mechanisms driving this association remain largely unknown, and knowledge of how ecological factors may affect its direction and strength is scant. In this study, we quantified variation in the association between exploratory behavior, basal metabolic rate (BMR), and total evaporative water loss (TEWL) in rufous-collared sparrows (Zonotrichia capensis) inhabiting desert, Mediterranean, and cold-temperate climates. We found that the exploratory behavior score was highest in birds from the cold-temperate site, which was characterized by a moderate level of ecological variability (seasonality). Moreover, the association between exploratory behavior and physiological variables differed among localities. Only birds from the Mediterranean site showed a positive correlation between exploratory behavior and BMR. We found no association between exploration and TEWL at any study site. Our findings suggest that differences in the ecological conditions experienced by each sparrow population result in a particular combination of behavioral and physiological traits. An understanding of this intraspecific variation along ecological gradients provides unique insights into how specific ecological conditions affect the coupling of behavioral and physiological traits and the mechanisms underlying that relationship.
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    Geographic variation in the repeatability of a personality trait
    (2010) van Dongen, Wouter F. D.; Maldonado, Karin; Sabat, Pablo; Vasquez, Rodrigo A.
    Animal personalities are interindividual behavioral differences that are consistent across time or contexts. Increasing research is revealing the adaptive significance of personalities, although the mechanisms driving this variation remain largely unknown. A possible source of variation in personality traits is interpopulational differences in the strength of selection acting upon them. The response to selection can be measured indirectly via the behavior's repeatability, as repeatability generally sets an upper limit to trait heritability. However, no information currently exists on geographic variation in personality repeatability. We therefore quantified repeatability in exploratory behavior, a common personality trait, over multiple trials for 3 populations of rufous-collared sparrow (Zonotrichia capensis), focusing on 3 specific measures (exploration speed, diversity of perches visited, and number of hops). We also asked how differences in repeatability of these 3 measures affect other aspects of exploration, such as the temporal consistency of intercorrelations between the measures. Exploration speed was highly repeatable across all populations, whereas diversity was only repeatable in 2 of 3 populations and hopping behavior not at all. These differences in repeatability lead to temporal variation in the correlation matrices of the 3 exploration measures. Finally, only trial number influenced interindividual variability in exploration, whereas population identity, experimental conditions (i.e., conducting the novel environment assay under laboratory or field conditions), and time since capture all had no effect. Our findings highlight the complexity of using measures of behavioral consistency as a definition of personalities and emphasize the value of quantifying interpopulational patterns of trait repeatability.