{"id":2662,"date":"2010-02-03T15:54:45","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T19:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=2662"},"modified":"2010-02-03T15:54:45","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T19:54:45","slug":"look-out-for-loners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2010\/02\/03\/look-out-for-loners\/","title":{"rendered":"Look out for Loners"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post contributed by Nadine Lymn, ESA Director of Public Affairs<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Personality traits that lead an individual to want to avoid crowds could actually be playing a role in biological invasions, says a recent study <\/a>that appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences.<\/em> \u00a0Julien Cote <\/a>and colleagues at the University of California at Davis looked at the personality traits of the mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis<\/em> <\/a>and found that the less sociable individuals travelled farther than their more amicable counterparts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Successful invasions happen in multiple stages: introduction of a species (either naturally or intentionally introduced by people), spread, establishment, growth to high density, and finally, high impact on the community the species invaded.\u00a0 Previous studies that compare characteristics between <\/em><\/strong>species suggest that aggressive and \u2018fast lifestyle\u2019 personality traits seem to go hand-in-hand with a species\u2019 ability to establish, grow rapidly to a high density, and have high impacts on the surrounding community.\u00a0 Cote and colleagues were interested in looking at how individual traits within<\/em><\/strong> a species might be influencing invasions.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Credit: Roman Slaboch<\/span><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

The researchers\u00a0released G. affinis<\/em> in an experimental stream with five pools.\u00a0 While most fish stayed in the release pool, others swam on, many of them ending up all the way downstream in the fifth pool.\u00a0 When the study was repeated, most of the individuals who left the first pool to swim farthest away\u2014the most asocial individuals\u2014did so again.<\/span><\/p>\n

In their paper, the authors say that:<\/span><\/p>\n

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If individuals leaving their pond of introduction have different personality traits than individuals staying, it would have important implications for the invasion process.\u00a0 Obviously, our measurement of dispersal might not precisely match dispersal distance in the wild.\u00a0 However, our aim is not to provide quantitative prediction of dispersal distance in the wild but to show that dispersal behavior might depend on personality traits in this invasive species.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The authors acknowledge that different traits needed to complete the various stages of invasion might be in conflict.\u00a0 For example, an inclination for frequent dispersal would be at odds with reaching a high enough population density for successful establishment.\u00a0 But interestingly, evidence exists\u2014say the authors\u2014that asocial individuals usually stay in low-density patches, moving on only when a population becomes dense:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Importantly, the increase in population size should then drive asocial individuals out, leading to colonization of additional empty patches.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Cote, J., Fogarty, S., Weinersmith, K., Brodin, T., & Sih, A. (2010). Personality traits and dispersal tendency in the invasive mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis) Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences<\/span> DOI: 10.1098\/rspb.2009.2128<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post contributed by Nadine Lymn, ESA Director of Public Affairs \u00a0 Personality traits that lead an individual to want to avoid crowds could actually be playing a role in biological invasions, says a recent study that appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences. \u00a0Julien Cote and colleagues at the University of California at Davis looked at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[494,495,496,497],"class_list":["post-2662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","tag-aquatic-invaders","tag-biological-invasions","tag-mosquitofish","tag-personality-traits-and-dispersal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}