Predation risk and abiotic habitat parameters affect personality traits in extremophile populations of a neotropical fish (Poecilia vivipara).

ABSTRACT: Understanding whether and how ambient ecological conditions affect the distribution of personality types within and among populations lies at the heart of research on animal personality. Several studies have focussed on only one agent of divergent selection (or driver of plastic changes in behavior), considering either predation risk or a single abiotic ecological factor. Here, we investigated how an array of abiotic and biotic environmental factors simultaneously shape population differences in boldness, activity in an open-field test, and sociability/shoaling in the livebearing fish Poecilia vivipara from six ecologically different lagoons in southeastern Brazil. We evaluated the relative contributions of variation in predation risk, water transparency/visibility, salinity (rangin

SUBMITTER: Sommer-Trembo C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5574810 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature