Phenotypic plasticity in life history and behavioural syndromes in short lived, iteroparous small mammals.

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If the environment varies between generations, adaptation to environmental conditions is difficult. In seasonal environments, short-lived animals may be born into spring/summer or autumn. Spring/summer-born animals mature quickly, their competition with conspecifics for reproduction is high, and life span is rather short. Their offspring, in contrast, may be born into autumn, have to survive the winter, mature at a relatively high age and have a relatively long life-span compared to summer animals. Further, in early spring competition with conspecifics is low. We assume, that with these different life-histories also different behavioural types have evolved, which facilitate successful reproduction in competitive situations or improve winter survival. We showed that in common vole populations, a short-lived, iteroparous animal in a seasonal environment, behavioural profiles measured in spring differ from those measured in summer and autumn. The measured variables are constant over the life of individuals. They do not differ between sexes, with the exception of higher physical activity in males. Behavioural differences measured between spring/summer animals in fine lab remained observable also in a field situation, indicating the relevance of behavioural profiles beyond the laboratory environment. On the other hand, behavioural types were flexible in animals which were transferred from summer to an artificial winter. In future experiments we want to conduct this experiment with winter animals transferred to artificial summers, to test whether we observe a general seasonal mismatch in the ontogeny of behaviour, or a season specific phenomenon. We want to further investigate the fitness of animals in mixed populations of different behavioural types in semi-natural enclosures, using automated radiotelemetry, life-capture and molecular paternity analyses. The result of our research will help us to understand the effects of variability in life histories, seasonally variable environments and different pace-of-life syndromes on the behaviour of animals.