TY - JOUR

T1 - Personality variation in a clonal insect

T2 - the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum

AU - Schuett, Wiebke

AU - Dall, Sasha R X

AU - Baeumer, Jana

AU - Kloesener, Michaela H

AU - Nakagawa, Shinichi

AU - Beinlich, Felix

AU - Eggers, Till

N1 - Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

PY - 2011/9

Y1 - 2011/9

N2 - Individuals are often consistent in their behavior but vary from each other in the level of behavior shown. Despite burgeoning interest in such animal personality variation, studies on invertebrates are scarce, and studies on clonal invertebrates nonexistent. This is surprising given the obvious advantages of using invertebrates/clones to tackle the crucial question why such consistent behavioral differences exist. Here we show that individuals of clonal pea aphids exhibit consistent behavioral differences in their escape responses to a predator attack (dropping vs. nondropping off a plant). However, behavior was not repeatable at the clonal level. Genetically identical clones expressed various phenotypes but different clones produced different proportions of each phenotype (dropper, nondropper, and inconsistent). Manipulations of early environmental conditions had little qualitative impact on such patterns. We discuss the importance of our findings for future studies of the evolutionary and ecological consequences of personality variation.

AB - Individuals are often consistent in their behavior but vary from each other in the level of behavior shown. Despite burgeoning interest in such animal personality variation, studies on invertebrates are scarce, and studies on clonal invertebrates nonexistent. This is surprising given the obvious advantages of using invertebrates/clones to tackle the crucial question why such consistent behavioral differences exist. Here we show that individuals of clonal pea aphids exhibit consistent behavioral differences in their escape responses to a predator attack (dropping vs. nondropping off a plant). However, behavior was not repeatable at the clonal level. Genetically identical clones expressed various phenotypes but different clones produced different proportions of each phenotype (dropper, nondropper, and inconsistent). Manipulations of early environmental conditions had little qualitative impact on such patterns. We discuss the importance of our findings for future studies of the evolutionary and ecological consequences of personality variation.

KW - Animals

KW - Aphids/physiology

KW - Behavior, Animal/physiology

KW - Escape Reaction/physiology

KW - Individuality

KW - Personality/physiology

U2 - 10.1002/dev.20538

DO - 10.1002/dev.20538

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 21365642

VL - 53

SP - 631

EP - 640

JO - Developmental Psychobiology

JF - Developmental Psychobiology

SN - 0012-1630

IS - 6

ER -