Towards an evolutionary ecology of individual differences

走向个体差异的进化生态学

• 批准号: 262747-2013
• 负责人: Reale, Denis
• 金额: $ 4.37万
• 依托单位: Université du Québec à Montréal
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=631734
• 关键词: Towards; evolutionary; ecology; individual; differences

Over the last decade in behavioural ecology there has been an increasing interest in consistent behavioural differences among individuals, also called personality differences. At the centre of this interest are the ecological and evolutionary reasons that individuals of the same species differ in their behaviour. The interest in personality is associated with a resurgence of theoretical activity on some evolutionary hypotheses: spatial and temporal variation in selection and the evolution of individual niche specialisation, frequency-dependent selection, indirect genetic effects, and the evolution of individual social niche specialisation, have all been proposed as alternative explanations to the maintenance of personality differences. At the same time, recent work on the evolution of personality differences has broadened the range of investigation to other traits such as life history or metabolism. Behavioural differences are now assumed to be part of a package of life history/metabolic strategies, which may provide adaptive explanations for the maintenance of behavioural variation in the wild. In this burst of activity around the questions on animal personality, I profit from my pioneering position in the field to propose a research program investigating some of the evolutionary hypotheses for the maintenance of personality differences. Over the next five years, my students and I will use data from unique long-term field studies I have been involved in over the last few years to explore theses different hypotheses. My program will be composed of three main short-term research objectives: 1) Testing the pace-of-life syndrome hypothesis (the hypothesis that personality is a facet of life history strategies, and behavioural variation is tightly linked to the existence of life history trade-offs). 2) Testing the hypothesis that spatial-temporal environmental variations create selection pressures that drive personality differences; and 3) Investigating the link between social niche specialisation and personality differences. My program will provide a unique set of studies that will help to develop an evolutionary ecology of individual differences.

在过去的十年里，行为生态学对个体之间一致的行为差异越来越感兴趣，也被称为人格差异。这种兴趣的中心是同一物种的个体行为不同的生态和进化原因。对人格的兴趣与一些进化假设的理论活动的复苏有关：选择的时空变化和个体生态位专业化的进化，频率依赖的选择，间接遗传效应，以及个体社会生态位专业化的进化，都被提出作为维持人格差异的替代解释。与此同时，最近关于人格差异进化的研究将研究范围扩大到其他特征，如生活史或新陈代谢。行为差异现在被认为是生活史/代谢策略的一部分，这可能为野生动物行为差异的维持提供适应性解释。在围绕动物性格问题的激烈讨论中，我利用自己在这一领域的先锋地位，提出了一项研究计划，调查维持性格差异的一些进化假设。在接下来的五年里，我和我的学生将使用我过去几年参与的独特的长期实地研究的数据来探索这些不同的假设。我的计划将由三个主要的短期研究目标组成：1)测试生活节奏综合症假设（假设人格是生活史策略的一个方面，行为变化与生活史权衡的存在密切相关）。2)验证时空环境变化产生的选择压力驱动人格差异的假设；3)调查社会利基专业化与人格差异之间的联系。我的项目将提供一套独特的研究，这将有助于发展个体差异的进化生态学。