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Blood Parasite Infection Intensity Covaries with Risk‐Taking Personality in Male Carpetan Rock Lizards ( Iberolacerta cyreni )
Author(s) -
Horváth Gergely,
Martín José,
López Pilar,
Garamszegi László Zsolt,
Bertók Péter,
Herczeg Gábor
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
ethology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.739
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1439-0310
pISSN - 0179-1613
DOI - 10.1111/eth.12475
Subject(s) - personality , biology , personality psychology , big five personality traits , reproductive success , psychology , lizard , ecology , zoology , developmental psychology , demography , social psychology , population , sociology
Abstract Identifying evolutionary and developmental mechanisms underlying consistent between‐individual differences in behaviour is the main goal in ‘animal personality studies’. Here, we explored whether activity and risk‐taking varied consistently between individuals and correlated to various – potentially fitness linked – male traits in Carpetan rock lizards ( Iberolacerta cyreni ). Lizards showed significant consistency within both behaviours, implying the presence of activity and risk‐taking personalities. However, there were no correlation between activity and risk‐taking, neither on the between‐ nor on the within‐individual levels, implying the absence of a behavioural syndrome. We found a strong link between the intensity of blood parasite ( Haemogregarinidae ) infection and risk‐taking: lizards with higher infection intensity took more risk. While we cannot distinguish cause from causative in the parasite intensity – risk‐taking correlation – our results are in line with the asset protection hypothesis predicting that individuals with lower future reproductive value should focus on the current reproductive event and take higher risk.