posted on 2018-01-13, 17:34authored byHannah A EdwardsHannah A Edwards, Hannah L Dugdale, David S Richardson, Jan Komdeur, Terry Burke
True genetic monogamy is rare, even in socially monogamous systems, and multiple factors, such as behaviour, social structure, morphology and physiology, determined by the biological system can cause variation in EPP. Therefore, investigating the inherent differences in these factors amongst individuals could be informative. We investigated whether reproductive outcomes are associated with differences in the propensity to explore novel environments/objects in a promiscuous, island-dwelling cooperatively breeding bird, the Seychelles warbler. Our results showed that exploratory behaviour was not associated with the number of offspring produced by an individual, and thus the long-term fitness consequences of different exploratory tendencies did not differ. We also found that the propensity to engage in EPP in females was higher in dissimilar behavioural pairs, but due to the small effect size we hesitate to conclude that there are personality-dependent mating outcomes in the population.
Funding
This work was supported by a Natural Environment Research Council studentship (X/007/001-15) to HAE, a Natural Environment Research Council fellowship (NE/I021748/1) to HLD, and two Schure Beijerinck Popping grants to HLD and HAE. TB was supported by a Leverhulme Fellowship.