Investigating personality in vipers: individual rattlesnakes exhibit consistent behavioral responses in defensive and exploratory contexts
Investigating personality in vipers: individual rattlesnakes exhibit consistent behavioral responses in defensive and exploratory contexts
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DOI：
10.1007/s00265-022-03239-w
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发表时间：
2022-10-01
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Clark, Rulon W.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Gibert, Ricardo G.;Maag, Dylan W.;Clark, Rulon W.
动物行为学的新兴文献已经证明，大多数动物在核心行为特征或个性方面表现出一致的个体差异。然而，动物个性研究的分类学传播是不平衡的，一些生态上重要的和多样的类群仍然没有研究。其中一些未充分研究的群体，如毒蛇，也是由于人类与野生动物冲突而经常被缓解的目标，保护研究人员越来越多地关注如何发展个人个性或气质，介导野生动物对管理或缓解行动的反应的一般理解。在这项研究中，我们在标准化试验中使用了20条圈养的西部响尾蛇（Crotalus oreganus）来测试可重复的行为（即，个性）并检查跨上下文的个性特征中的可能关系（即，行为综合征）。行为的可重复性进行了评估，在五个重复的试验组成的处理试验，一个开放的领域的测试，和一个威胁分析。我们发现一些行为相关的探索/回避，活动水平，大胆/害羞表现出显着的重复性。然而，我们没有发现跨环境行为综合征的证据。我们的分析表明，类似于许多其他物种和分类组，蝰蛇也显示个人的个性特征时，在标准化条件下进行测试，我们讨论了这一发现的影响，缓解，保护和比较分析广泛相似的物种群体。重要性声明现在已经确定，非人类动物表现出与人类所称的人格相似的个体行为特征，动物人格研究在保护和管理领域变得越来越重要。然而，目前还没有关于毒蛇的人格/行为研究，毒蛇不仅是许多生态系统中重要的捕食者，也是人与野生动物冲突的主要来源。我们使用了一系列标准化的行为测试来确定西部响尾蛇个体是否表现出独特的个性。我们发现，个别蛇确实表现出与个性一致的可重复行为特征，但我们没有发现这些气质特征在不同的环境中是相关的。我们的研究结果对于发展毒蛇行为的更微妙的观点非常重要，并且可以帮助制定更人道的策略来减少人类与野生动物的冲突。
A burgeoning literature in animal behavior has demonstrated that most animals exhibit consistent individual variation in core behavioral traits or personality. However, the taxonomic spread of animal personality studies is uneven, with some ecologically important and diverse taxa still unstudied. Some of these understudied groups, such as venomous snakes, are also frequent targets of mitigation due to human-wildlife conflict, and conservation researchers have been increasingly focused on developing a general understanding of how individual personality, or temperament, mediates wildlife responses to management or mitigation actions. In this study, we used 20 captive Western Rattlesnakes (Crotalus oreganus) in standardized assays to test for repeatable behaviors (i.e., personalities) between individuals and examine possible relationships in personality traits across contexts (i.e., behavioral syndromes). Repeatability of behaviors was assessed over five repeated trials consisting of a handling assay, an open field test, and a threat assay. We found several behaviors related to exploration/avoidance, activity level, and boldness/shyness showed significant repeatability. However, we found no evidence for behavioral syndromes across contexts. Our analysis shows that, similar to many other species and taxonomic groups, viperid snakes also display individual personality traits when tested under standardized conditions, and we discuss the implications of this finding for mitigation, conservation, and comparative analyses across broadly similar species groups. Significance Statement It has now been well established that non-human animals exhibit individual behavioral traits similar to what humans term personality, and animal personality studies are becoming more important in the field of conservation and management. However, there are no previous personality/behavioral studies on venomous snakes, which are not only important predators in many ecosystems, but also a major source of human-wildlife conflict. We used a series of standardized behavioral tests to determine whether individual Western Rattlesnakes showed distinct personalities. We found that individual snakes did indeed exhibit repeatable behavioral traits consistent with personalities, but we did not find that these temperament traits were correlated across contexts. Our findings are important to developing a more nuanced view of the behaviors of venomous snakes and could aid in the development of more humane strategies to reduce human-wildlife conflict.