Social groups with diverse personalities mitigate physiological stress in a songbird.

ABSTRACT: Social groups often consist of diverse phenotypes, including personality types, and this diversity is known to affect the functioning of the group as a whole. Social selection theory proposes that group composition (i.e. social environment) also influences the performance of individual group members. However, the effect of group behavioural composition on group members remains largely unexplored, and it is still contentious whether individuals benefit more in a social environment with homogeneous or diverse behavioural composition. We experimentally formed groups of house sparrows Passer domesticus with high and low diversity of personality (exploratory behaviour), and found that their physiological state (body condition, physiological stress and oxidative damage) improved with incr

SUBMITTER: Vagasi CI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7893263 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature