Personality-based individual differences in foraging efficiencies and metabolic rates and their consequences for predator-prey interactions.

物种性状种内变异的重要性目前在种群和群落生态学家中引起了激烈的争论。特别是，人们一再呼吁将动物行为与更传统的、以种群为导向的生态学研究结合起来，以更好地理解行为特征与觅食生态学之间的功能关系。我提出的研究项目解决了如何用行为类型（有时也表示动物个性）的个体差异来解释代谢和摄食率的种内差异的问题。基于功能反应模型框架，在实验室实验中分析欧洲鲈鱼幼鱼饵料依赖于饵料密度的摄食率。这提供了一个显著的机会，将行为介导的功能结果与通过捕食者的猎物消耗率产生的种群水平的后果联系起来。我的研究目的是收集关于个体的能量需求（即个体代谢）如何约束捕获和处理猎物的基本机制的综合知识，以及这是否由行为类型介导。因此，我将评估关键功能反应参数捕获率和处理时间的种内变化范围如何与关键人格特征（即活动，敏捷性和探索行为）机械地联系在一起，我将分析这些人格特征如何影响对不同猎物类型（即底栖Asellus aquaticus和远洋大水蚤）的摄食率。该研究项目采用了一种特别创新的方法，将高速相机和3d环境中的观察与功能响应研究中的传统模型估计程序相结合。我的主要假设是：(1)高活动、高敏捷性和更具探索性的个体的新陈代谢和摄食率明显高于种群平均水平；(2)这些高摄食率主要是由更活跃的类型的高相遇率驱动的。(3)猎物感知和发现也会受到行为类型的影响。该研究项目为从自然种群中推断捕食者-猎物相互作用强度的当前标准程序的急需评估提供了关键的一步。总的来说，拟议的研究项目将提高我们目前对捕食者-猎物相互作用的理解，同时，它将促进营养相互作用的前瞻性模型中种内变化的整合，进一步加深我们对以鲈鱼为模式物种的种群生态学的理解。在提案的最后，我还概述了我以后如何与我的合作者一起将我的研究结果应用到这种先进的捕食者-猎物种群模型中。

The importance of intraspecific variation in species traits is currently intensively debated by population and community ecologists. In particular, there have been repeated calls to integrate animal behaviour with more traditional, population-oriented ecological research to provide an improved understanding of functional relationships between behavioural traits and foraging ecology. My proposed research project addresses the question how intraspecific variation in metabolism and feeding rates can be explained by individual differences in behavioural types (sometimes also denoted animal personalities). I propose to analyse prey-density dependent feeding rates of juvenile European perch (Perca fluviatilis) in laboratory experiments based on the functional response model framework. This provides the notable opportunity to link behavioural-mediated functional outcomes to population-level consequences via consumption rates of prey by predators. The objective of my research is to gather integrated knowledge on how the energetic demands of individuals (i.e., individual metabolism) constrain the basic mechanisms of capturing and handling prey and if this is mediated by the behavioural types. Hence, I will assess how the range of intraspecific variation in the critical functional response parameters capture rate and handling time is mechanistically linked to key personality traits (namely activity, agility and exploratory behaviour) and I will analyse how these personality traits affect the feeding rate on different prey types (i.e., benthic Asellus aquaticus versus pelagic Daphnia magna). The research project features a particularly innovative approach by combining observations with high speed cameras and in a 3D-environment with conventional model estimation procedures in functional response research. My main hypotheses are, (1), high-activity, high-agility, and more exploratory individuals have significantly higher metabolism and feeding rates than the population average and, (2), these high feeding rates are driven mainly by higher encounter rates of the more active types. (3) prey perception and detection will also be affected by behavioural types. This research project provides a critical step towards an urgently-needed evaluation of current standard procedures of inferring predator-prey interaction strengths from natural populations.Overall, the proposed research project will improve our current understanding of predator-prey interactions and, simultaneously, it will facilitate an integration of the intraspecific variation in prospective models of trophic interactions furthering our understanding of population ecology using perch as a model species. At the end of the proposal I am also outlining how I could later implement the findings from my research into such an advanced type of predator-prey population models together with my collaborators.