School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2022 Dec 12;17(12):e0279066. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279066. eCollection 2022.
Animals regularly scan their environment for predators and to monitor conspecifics. However, individuals in a group seem to differ in their vigilance linked to age, sex or state with recent links made to personality. The aims of the study were to investigate whether a) individuals differ consistently in their vigilance, b) vigilance is linked to other personality traits and c) other factors affect vigilance in the colour polymorphic Gouldian finch. Birds were tested in same (red-headed or black-headed) or mixed head colour morph same sex pairs in four contexts (novel environment, familiar environment, two changed environments). Vigilance was measured as horizontal head movements. Vigilance showed contextual consistency but no long-term temporal consistency over a year. Head movements were only weakly linked to other personality traits indicative of a risk-reward trade-off with more explorative individuals being less vigilant. Vigilance was highly plastic across situations and affected by group composition. Mixed head colour morph pairs made more head movements, potentially linked to higher social vigilance. Results indicate that vigilance is a highly plastic trait affected by personality rather than a personality trait on its own, which allows adapting vigilance to different situations.
动物经常扫描它们的环境以寻找捕食者并监测同种个体。然而，群体中的个体在与年龄、性别或状态相关的警戒程度上似乎存在差异，最近的研究将其与个性联系起来。本研究的目的是调查：a) 个体的警戒程度是否存在一致的差异；b) 警戒程度是否与其他个性特征有关；c) 其他因素是否会影响颜色多态的古氏雀的警戒程度。在四个环境（新环境、熟悉环境、两个变化环境）中，对同色（红头或黑头）或异色（同性别）配对的鸟类进行测试。警戒程度通过水平头部运动来衡量。警戒程度表现出环境一致性，但在一年的时间内没有长期的时间一致性。头部运动与其他个性特征的联系很弱，表明存在风险-回报权衡，更具探索性的个体警觉性较低。警戒程度在不同情况下具有高度的可塑性，并受到群体组成的影响。混合头色形态的配对会做出更多的头部运动，可能与更高的社会警戒有关。研究结果表明，警戒程度是一种高度可塑的特征，受个性影响，而不是自身的个性特征，这使得个体能够根据不同的情况调整警戒程度。
