Repeatability and heritability of social reaction norms in a wild agamid lizard.
Evolution
; 75(8): 1953-1965, 2021 08.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34184766
ABSTRACT
In the evolutionary transition from solitary to group living, it should be adaptive for animals to respond to the environment and choose when to socialize to reduce conflict and maximize access to resources. Due to the associated proximate mechanisms (e.g. neural network, endocrine system), it is likely that this behavior varies between individuals according to genetic and non-genetic factors. We used long-term behavioral and genetic data from a population of eastern water dragons (Intellagama lesueurii) to explore variation in plasticity of social behavior, in response to sex ratio and density. To do so, we modeled individual variation in social reaction norms, which describe individuals' mean behavior and behavioral responses to changes in their environment, and partitioned variance into genetic and non-genetic components. We found that reaction norms were repeatable over multiple years, suggesting that individuals consistently differed in their behavioral responses to changes in the social environment. Despite high repeatability of reaction norm components, trait heritability was below our limit of detection based on power analyses (h2 < 0.12), leading to very little power to detect heritability of plasticity. This was in contrast to a relatively greater amount of variance associated with environmental effects. This could suggest that mechanisms such as social learning and frequency-dependence may shape variance in reaction norms, which will be testable as the dataset grows.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Bases de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Lagartos
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
Limite:
Animals
/
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Evolution
Ano de publicação:
2021
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Austrália