Class Barbara, Brommer Jon E
Department of Biology, University of Turku, University Hill, Turku 20014, Finland
Department of Biology, University of Turku, University Hill, Turku 20014, Finland.
Proc Biol Sci. 2015 Jun 22;282(1809):20142777. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2014.2777.
In animal populations, as in humans, behavioural differences between individuals that are consistent over time and across contexts are considered to reflect personality, and suites of correlated behaviours expressed by individuals are known as behavioural syndromes. Lifelong stability of behavioural syndromes is often assumed, either implicitly or explicitly. Here, we use a quantitative genetic approach to study the developmental stability of a behavioural syndrome in a wild population of blue tits. We find that a behavioural syndrome formed by a strong genetic correlation of two personality traits in nestlings disappears in adults, and we demonstrate that genotype-age interaction is the likely mechanism underlying this change during development. A behavioural syndrome may hence change during organismal development, even when personality traits seem to be strongly physiologically or functionally linked in one age group. We outline how such developmental plasticity has important ramifications for understanding the mechanistic basis as well as the evolutionary consequences of behavioural syndromes.
在动物群体中，如同在人类中一样，个体间在不同时间和情境下都保持一致的行为差异被认为反映了个性，而个体表现出的一系列相关行为被称为行为综合征。行为综合征的终生稳定性常常被默认，无论是含蓄地还是明确地。在这里，我们使用定量遗传学方法来研究蓝山雀野生种群中一种行为综合征的发育稳定性。我们发现，雏鸟中由两种个性特征的强遗传相关性形成的行为综合征在成年后消失了，并且我们证明基因型 - 年龄相互作用是发育过程中这种变化的潜在机制。因此，即使个性特征在一个年龄组中似乎在生理或功能上紧密相连，行为综合征在生物体发育过程中也可能发生变化。我们概述了这种发育可塑性如何对理解行为综合征的机制基础以及进化后果具有重要影响。
