Pace of Life and Personality in the Guppy, <em>Poecilia reticulata</em>. — ASN Events

Pace of Life and Personality in the Guppy, Poecilia reticulata. (#349)

Stephen J White 1 , Alastair Wilson 1
  1. University of Exeter, Penryn, CORNWALL, United Kingdom

The presence of personality is well established in a wide range of taxa, yet the mechanisms responsible for its generation remain elusive. Pace of Life Syndrome predicts physiological and behavioural characteristics will covary with an individual’s life history strategy and has been highlighted as a promising explanation for the generation of personality variation in wild populations. Despite intuitive appeal, empirical support for integration of personality within a wider POLS has been mixed. Furthermore, where phenotypic integration is found, the question of what causes variation in POLS still remains. In order to address this I conducted a quantitative genetics analysis of boldness, metabolic rate and growth in a pedigreed population of the Trinidadian Guppy, Poecilia reticulata. A three generation pedigree was bred and repeated phenotypic measures were analysed using multivariate animal models. Results show that genetics play an important role in shaping POLS traits, including personality, but that maternal effects are also important. By determining how these genetic and maternal effects contribute to among-trait covariance I evaluate both the evidence for an integrated POLS and the relative contributions of genetic and maternal effects to it.