Peignier, Mélissa (2022). The link between personality and sexual selection in a neotropical poison frog. (Thesis). Universität Bern, Bern
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22peignier_m.pdf - Thesis Available under License Creative Commons: Attribution-Share Alike (CC-BY-SA 4.0). Download (7MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Over the past years, an increasing number of studies have provided empirical evidence of the existence of consistent between-individual differences in behaviour, also known as “animal personality”. However, we do not yet understand how these behavioural differences between individuals arise in the first place, and how they are maintained in animal populations. Throughout my thesis, I aimed to improve our understanding of the evolutionary mechanisms that maintain between-individual variation in behaviour. I investigated patterns in the distribution of behaviours across the natural and social environment, and I studied how personality traits relate to behaviours that are shaped by sexual selection. To do so, I used a combination of behavioural tests, molecular parentage analysis and fitness measures in a closed, wild, free-ranging experimental population of the Neotropical poison frog Allobates femoralis. Throughout the chapters that I present here, I show that male and female poison frogs display several personality traits that, combined with behavioural plasticity, helps them cope with variation in their natural and social environment. Further, I show that personality traits are related to several behaviours that are shaped by sexual selection, such as mate choice, reproductive success, and reproductive output. I also showed that personality traits can have different – even opposite – effects on the various components of reproductive success, which can lead to the evolution of different reproductive strategies. By studying variation in behaviour between and within individuals, I increased our understanding of how behavioural variation is maintained and found evidence that limited plasticity can arise because of a link with individual differences in life-history trade-offs.
| Item Type: | Thesis |
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| Dissertation Type: | Cumulative |
| Date of Defense: | 7 December 2022 |
| Subjects: | 500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology 500 Science > 590 Animals (Zoology) |
| Institute / Center: | 08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE) |
| Depositing User: | Hammer Igor |
| Date Deposited: | 07 Jan 2025 09:45 |
| Last Modified: | 07 Jan 2025 23:25 |
| URI: | https://boristheses.unibe.ch/id/eprint/5721 |
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