Predator exposure early in life shapes behavioral development and individual variation in a clonal fish.

ABSTRACT: Predation risk is one of the most important factors generating behavioral differences among populations. In addition, recent attention focusses on predation as a potential driver of patterns of individual behavioral variation within prey populations. Previous studies provide mixed results, reporting either increased or decreased among-individual variation in response to risk. Here, we take an explicit developmental approach to documenting how among-individual variation develops over time in response to predator exposure, controlling for both genetic and experiential differences among individuals. We reared juveniles of naturally clonal Amazon mollies, Poecilia formosa, either with or without a predator visible during feedings over 4 weeks and analyzed activity during feedings, time spent f

SUBMITTER: Scherer U 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11408663 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature