Exploratory behavior undergoes genotype-age interactions in a wild bird.

ABSTRACT: Animal personality traits are often heritable and plastic at the same time. Indeed, behaviors that reflect an individual's personality can respond to environmental factors or change with age. To date, little is known regarding personality changes during a wild animals' lifetime and even less about stability in heritability of behavior across ages. In this study, we investigated age-related changes in the mean and in the additive genetic variance of exploratory behavior, a commonly used measure of animal personality, in a wild population of great tits. Heritability of exploration is reduced in adults compared to juveniles, with a low genetic correlation across these age classes. A random regression animal model confirmed the occurrence of genotype-age interactions (G×A) in exploration, caus

SUBMITTER: Class B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6706179 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature