Behavioural syndrome between boldness and aggressiveness and link with reproductive success in a wild bird population
Résumé
Boldness, defined as the behavioural response of individuals when facing a risky situation, is a major
personality trait and often phenotypically correlates with other behavioural traits, in particular aggressiveness,
exploration behaviour and neophobia. Yet, whether such links result from among-individual
correlations, i.e. form behavioural syndromes sensu stricto, is often ignored and whether such syndromes
may yield individual fitness benefits, and thus be selected for, remains poorly explored. We
measured boldness as the nest defence behaviour against a dummy nest predator in a natural population
of a small passerine bird, the collared flycatcher, Ficedula albicollis, and investigated the existence of a
behavioural syndrome between boldness and two other behavioural traits, aggressiveness (measured as
the agonistic response to competitors) and neophobia (measured as the behavioural response to a novel
object in a known environment). Then we assessed the links between this potential syndrome and
reproductive success, measured as fledging and recruitment success. Boldness score differed between the
sexes and depended on whether the partner was present during the test. Nevertheless, it was repeatable,
showing that boldness can be considered as a personality trait in our population. We found a positive
among-individual correlation between boldness and aggressiveness, showing the existence of a behavioural
syndrome between both personality traits. This syndrome was related to reproductive success: the
number of fledged young (but not recruitment probability) increased with one integrative value of the
boldnesseaggressiveness syndrome. Conversely, boldness score was not correlated with neophobia. Our
results thus clearly reveal a behavioural syndrome between boldness and aggressiveness with possible
consequences for reproductive success in the study population, and therefore raise the question of the
evolutionary implications of such a behavioural syndrome
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