Staying Alive: Individual Behavioral Variation Influences Survival, but Not Reproductive Success, in Female Group-Living Ground Squirrels.

ABSTRACT: Animals living in harsh or unpredictable environments adopt adaptive strategies to improve their fitness, with behavioral variation playing a key role in shaping individual outcomes. We examined whether between-individual variation in behavioral traits (personality) was associated with reproductive success and survival in female Cape ground squirrels (Xerus inauris). Using a 10-year dataset (2011-2021), we quantified behavioral expressions of the animal's response to trapping and handling (trap response, as a proxy for docility), trapping rate (trappability, for boldness) and the number of different trapping locations an animal was trapped at (trap diversity, for exploration) and examined their associations with (1) annual reproductive success, (2) lifetime reproductive success, (3)

SUBMITTER: Warrington MH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12304441 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature