Personality, life history, and the evolution of individual niche specialization

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Recent development in evolutionary ecology has focused the reasons of the maintenance of variation in behaviour traits in wild populations. Among the explanations proposed, the pace-of-life syndrome (POLS) hypothesis posits that any trait that mediates the trade-off between current and future reproduction should coevolve with the slow-fast life history continuum. In return the trade-off should maintain the variance in the mediator. We should thus observe a syndrome between some traits and the slow-fast continuum. For instance, proactive individuals (bold, aggressive, active and superficial explorers) should show faster life history than reactive ones. A recent metaanalysis, however, has shown ambiguous support for that prediction. One reason may explain this lack of support: environmental conditions should have strong effects on the detection of the POLS and its evolution, and we ignore how environmental conditions favour the evolution of POLS. In the next five years, I will develop a corpus of theoretical and empirical work to move forward the studies on the maintenance of trait variance. I suggest that investigating the link between individual behaviour, life history and habitat selection, and individual niche specialization should lead to new discoveries on the mechanisms maintaining trait variance. STO1. My collaborators and I will elaborate simulations to examine the implication of spatial and environmental heterogeneity (i.e. resources, predation, competition) on the coevolution of individual exploration/aggressiveness, life history (fast-slow), and habitat selection, via their effects on foraging behaviour and resource acquisition. STO2. I will test whether animals can improve their fitness either by: i) choosing a habitat that best matches their phenotypes (habitat matching), ii) changing their phenotype as a function of the environment (phenotypic plasticity), or iii) adjusting their environment to match their phenotypes (niche construction). These three mechanisms should lead to an association between traits and habitat features, although we ignore whether these associations will be found at the genetic, developmental, or within-individual reversible level. I will study the patterns of covariance between behaviour, life history and the environment using two long-term research programs on natural populations of Corsican blue tits and eastern chipmunks. STO3. I will explore how behaviour traits may mediate other trade-offs than the current-future reproduction trade-off. Combining simulation models (STO1) and empirical studies on blue tits, I will focus on the quantity-quality of progeny trade-off and bet-hedging. This program will provide novel and original discoveries that should stimulate research in evolutionary ecology, with implications for food web ecology, conservation, and climate change studies.