Personality interacts with habitat quality to govern individual mortality and dispersal patterns.

ABSTRACT: Individual phenotypic differences are increasingly recognized as key drivers of ecological processes. However, studies examining the relative importance of these differences in comparison with environmental factors or how individual phenotype interacts across different environmental contexts remain lacking. We performed two field experiments to assess the concurrent roles of personality differences and habitat quality in mediating individual mortality and dispersal. We quantified the predator avoidance response of mud crabs, Panopeus herbstii, collected from low- and high-quality oyster reefs and measured crab loss in a caging experiment. We simultaneously measured the distance crabs traveled as well as the stability of personalities across reef quality in a separate reciprocal tran

SUBMITTER: Belgrad BA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6065346 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature