Behavioural adaptations to biological invasions

种间竞争塑造了动物和植物群落，以及物种的进化。入侵物种已经走出了它们的共同进化网络，并允许在入侵范围内进行直接的种间竞争的研究。由于货物和人员的全球流动性，野生动物的无计划迁移和引进如今很常见。如果引进的个体融入同一物种的现有种群，或者如果引进的物种不能在新的土地上建立，它们仍然没有被发现。在这里，我的目标是研究行为特征和行为的灵活性，这可能有助于一个物种的入侵潜力，和行为特征和适应的入侵社区，这也可能决定建立成功的引进物种。一个世纪前，银行田鼠被意外地引入到没有田鼠的爱尔兰。在最后一个冰河时期之后，实际上很少有哺乳动物物种到达爱尔兰，唯一的另一种自由放养的小型啮齿动物是林鼠Apodemus sylvaticus，也是许多世纪前引入的。虽然在中欧的物种是同域的，但木老鼠经历了许多世纪的竞争性释放，这可能改变了物种。田鼠种群迅速扩大，目前覆盖了爱尔兰约2/3的地区，因此这两个物种现在都在争夺稀缺的林地和树篱栖息地，而河岸田鼠的加入降低了当地的木鼠密度。这个简单的啮齿动物群落提供了一个独特的机会来研究，在第一步，两个问题：（1）入侵的啮齿动物物种可以调整他们的行为，同时扩大到新的地区？我预计在扩张边缘会有更多的剥削和移动的动物，而不是在既定的范围内。(2)被入侵的动物群落是否会调整行为以应对与新竞争对手的同居？我希望，由于经典的生态理论的竞争行为特征的木老鼠取代，以避免竞争，并将调查动物的个性，饮食和活动模式。然而，新的结果表明，生态非常相似的物种生态位可能是个人的，基于动物的个性和空间使用，这也将被认为是这个物种对。对于这些问题，我将使用已建立的方法来量化小啮齿动物的动物个性，即个体，跨时间和背景可重复的行为特征，同位素分析，并调查活动模式。具体而言，行为研究将补充早先对爱尔兰田鼠-小鼠群落的遗传学和寄生虫学研究。 更一般地说，我的研究结果将扩大我们的知识的行为在入侵生物学中的作用，从而扩大我们的概念理解的种间竞争的机制。

Interspecific competition has shaped animal and plant communities, and the evolution of species. Invasive species have stepped outside their co-evolutionary networks, and allow the study of direct, interspecific competition at the invasion range. Unplanned translocations and introductions of wild animals are nowadays common due to the global mobility of goods and people. They remain undetected, if the introduced individuals melt into existing populations of the same species, or if the introduced species is not able to establish at the terra nova. Here I aim to study behavioural traits and behavioural flexibility which may contribute to the invasive potential of a species, and behavioural traits and adaptation of the invaded community, which may also determine establishment success of an introduced species. A century ago bank voles Myodes glareolus were accidentally introduced to vole-free Ireland. After the last ice-age actually very few mammal species reached the Ireland and the only other free-ranging small rodent is the wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus, also introduced many centuries ago. While in Central Europe the species are sympatric, the wood mice experienced competitive release over many centuries, which may have changed the species. The vole population quickly expanded and currently covers about 2/3 of Ireland, so that both species nowadays compete for scarce woodland and hedge habitats, and the addition of bank voles decreases local wood mouse densities. This simple rodent community offers a unique opportunity to study, in a first step, two questions: (1) Can invading rodent species adjust their behaviour while expanding into new areas? I expect more exploitative and mobile animals at the expansion edge, compared to animals at established ranges. (2) Do invaded animal communities adjust behaviourally in response to cohabitation with a novel competitor? I expect that due to classical ecological theory of competition behavioural characters of wood mice displace to avoid competition and will investigate animal personality, diet, and activity patterns. However, novel results suggest that for ecological very similar species ecological niches may be individual, based on animal personality and space use, which will be also considered for this species pair. For these questions I will use methods established to quantify animal personality of small rodents, i.e. individual, behavioural traits that are repeatable across time and contexts, isotope analysis, and investigate activity patterns. Specifically, behavioural studies will complement earlier genetic and parasitological studies on the vole-mice community in Ireland. More general, my results will expand on our knowledge of the role of behaviour in invasion biology, and thus broaden our conceptual understanding of the mechanisms of interspecific competition.