Deck 17: Animal Personalities

Question 1

Personality differences are defined as:

A) genotypic differences among individuals that, paradoxically, give rise to the same behavior.
B) short-term genotypic effects on certain behavior patterns.
C) long-term, but inconsistent manifestations of behavior in a single individual.
D) consistent, long-term behavioral differences among individuals.
E) phenotypic differences between species.

Answer 1

consistent, long-term behavioral differences among individuals.

Question 2

Potential benefits of predator inspection behavior include:

A) identifying whether a predator is a potential danger.
B) assessing the motivational state of the predator.
C) announcing to a predator that it has been seen.
D) obtaining information on how close the predator is to one's group.
E) all of the above

Answer 2

all of the above

Question 3

Which of the following does NOT differ between individuals that adopt proactive versus reactive coping styles?

A) disease susceptibility
B) noradrenaline levels
C) body size
D) immunosuppressive capabilities
E) aggressive behavior

Answer 3

body size

Question 4

Empirical work in guppies (Poecilia reticulata) has shown that bold inspectors enjoy which of the following benefits?

A) decreased mortality risk
B) feeding priority in a stream
C) larger energy budget
D) lower parasite infestation
E) mate attraction

Question 5

Which of the following statements regarding the work of Lank and his colleagues on ruff leks is FALSE?

A) Mating strategies are likely inherited via a single locus with two alleles.
B) Male mating strategies are not inherited via the sex chromosome.
C) The allele coding for the satellite strategy is dominant.
D) Male mating strategies are sex-linked traits.
E) None of the above

Question 6

What is the single most important question that a researcher must consider before labeling certain behaviors as personalities?

A) Do individuals consistently exhibit the same patterns of behavior?
B) Do individuals exhibit the same behavior pattern as others in the population?
C) Do individuals within a population differ in their behavioral repertoires?
D) Do certain individuals behave more economically than others?
E) Do some individuals invest more energy in one type of behavior than others?

Question 7

Proactive coping styles are associated with:

A) immobility and low aggression levels.
B) active responses to problems encountered in the environment.
C) withdrawal from problems encountered in the environment.
D) territorial control and aggression.
E) b and d

Question 8

Personality types have been studied most comprehensively by:

A) psychologists.
B) endocrinologists.
C) neurobiologists.
D) ethologists.
E) geneticists.

Question 9

Which of the following contraptions was used by Wilson and his colleagues to catch "bold" pumpkinseed sunfish?

A) seining nets
B) custom-designed traps
C) bottles
D) aquarium fish nets
E) hook and line

Question 10

Gosling's studies on hyenas identified which of the following sets of personality subcategories?

A) assertiveness, violent tendencies, curiosity, excitability, and sociability
B) assertiveness, human-directed agreeableness, curiosity, excitability, and sociability
C) assertiveness, boldness, aggressiveness, excitability, and sociability
D) assertiveness, boldness, aggressiveness, coping ability, and excitability
E) behavioral inhibition, boldness, aggressiveness, curiosity, and excitability

Question 11

Conduct a small-scale search of the animal behavior literature for studies that perform repeatability analyses on a particular behavior-for example, boldness or aggression. Describe the major objective of repeatability analysis and how this technique is relevant to studying animal personalities. Now, assemble the repeatability estimates for your focal behavior and evaluate the degree to which these estimates vary both within and among species. Is there consensus on how repeatable these behaviors are? If not, what factors might explain variation among studies?

Question 12

Imagine that you have been diligently collecting behavioral data on a particular species of bird for the past ten years. While scanning your data, you discover that (1) individuals in each population are consistent in the behaviors they exhibit; (2) a fair bit of between-individual behavioral variation exists within a population; and (3) substantial between-population behavioral variation exists. Construct a set of experiments that could tease apart the contribution of genetic versus cultural inheritance in the establishment of personality types in your study organism.

Question 13

Discuss the concept of a "coping style" put forth by Koolhaas et al. (1999) in their review, "Coping Styles in Animals: Current Status in Behavior and Stress Physiology" (Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, vol. 23, pp. 925-935). How might two drastically different coping styles be equally adaptive? Also, can you think of any ways in which experiences in early life shape the coping style that any given animal adopts?

Question 14

Read the article by Stamps and colleagues (2012) entitled "Unpredictable Animals: Individual Differences in Intraindividual Variability (IIV)" (Animal Behaviour, vol. 83, pp. 1325-1334). Is intraindividual variability the antithesis of animal personality? Under what circumstances might natural selection favor intraindividual variability? Which proximate mechanisms might underlie intraindividual variability?

Question 15

Read the article by Monaghan (2008), "Early Growth Conditions, Phenotypic Development and Environmental Change" (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B, vol. 363, pp. 1635-1645). Using the concepts forwarded in this paper as a springboard, develop at least two hypotheses regarding how early life and adult social environments might interact to dictate the fitness of certain personality traits.

Question 16

Read the article by Butler and colleagues (2012) titled "Ontogenetic Immune Challenges Shape Adult Personality in Mallard Ducks" (Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B, vol. 279, pp. 326-333). How did these authors evaluate the links between neonatal immune status and personality? What did they find? Develop at least two hypotheses regarding how early life immune challenges might shape activity levels and exploratory behavior. Why might natural selection favor this type of developmental behavioral plasticity?