Behavioural syndromes differ predictably between 12 populations of three‐spined stickleback

Animals often differ in suites of correlated behaviours, comparable with how humans differ in personality. Constraints on the architecture of behaviour have been invoked to explain why such 'behavioural syndromes' exist. From an adaptationist viewpoint, however, behavioural syndromes should evolve only in those populations where natural selection has favoured such trait covariance, and they should therefore exist only in particular types of population. A comparative approach was used to examine this prediction of the adaptive hypothesis. We measured behavioural correlations in 12 different populations of three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) and assessed whether they indeed varied consistently…

• RS
  Royal Society
• NO
  Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek