Individual variation in the compromise between social group membership and exposure to preferred temperatures.

ABSTRACT: Group living is widespread among animal species, and comes with a number of costs and benefits associated with foraging, predator avoidance and reproduction. It is largely unknown, however, whether individuals sacrifice exposure to their own preferred or optimal environmental conditions so they can remain part of a social group. Here, we demonstrate that individual three-spine sticklebacks vary in the degree to which they forego exposure to their preferred ambient temperature so they can associate with a group of conspecifics. Individual fish varied widely in preferred temperature when tested in isolation. When the same individuals were presented with a choice of a warm or cold thermal regime in the presence of a social group in one of the environments, fish spent more time with the group

SUBMITTER: Cooper B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6015869 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature