Regardless of personality, males show similar levels of plasticity in territory defense in a Neotropical poison frog.

Peignier, Mélissa; Bégué, Lauriane; Ringler, Max; Szabo, Birgit; Ringler, Eva (2023). Regardless of personality, males show similar levels of plasticity in territory defense in a Neotropical poison frog. Scientific reports, 13(1), p. 3435. Springer Nature 10.1038/s41598-023-30546-7

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Animal personality traits are sometimes linked to an individual's degree of plasticity, with certain personality types being more plastic than others. In territorial species, consistently high levels of aggression might increase the risk of harmful fights, while consistently low aggression might lead to the loss of a territory. Consequently, reacting plastically with an appropriate territorial response should be beneficial to avoid these risks. An integrative investigation of both personality traits and plasticity can help us better understand the dynamics of aggressive interactions during male-male competition. Here, we used a free-ranging Neotropical poison frog population to investigate the role of plasticity in male territorial aggression towards intruders. We conducted repeated standardized territorial intrusion experiments mimicking frogs of different body sizes via playback calls with different peak frequencies. We found individual repeatability for the latency to reach and approach a simulated intruder and observed that both aggressive and less aggressive males decreased their level of aggression towards big intruders. However, our results do not support a correlation between personality and plasticity in the context of male territory defense during the breeding season. We discuss how such a correlation between personality and plasticity might be conditional on the costs and benefits across contexts.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE) > Behavioural Ecology
08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE)

UniBE Contributor:

Peignier, Mélissa Carole Noëlle, Bégué, Lauriane, Ringler, Max, Szabo, Birgit, Ringler, Eva

Subjects:

500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology
500 Science > 590 Animals (Zoology)

ISSN:

2045-2322

Publisher:

Springer Nature

Language:

English

Submitter:

Pubmed Import

Date Deposited:

02 Mar 2023 12:59

Last Modified:

02 Mar 2023 23:37

Publisher DOI:

10.1038/s41598-023-30546-7

PubMed ID:

36859425

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/179403

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/179403

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