Individual differences in the behavioural responses of meadow voles to an unfamiliar environment are not correlated with variation in resting metabolic rate

Autor: A. D. Dudych, M. E. Timonin, Craig K. R. Willis, C. J. Carrière, J. G. W. Latimer, Scott Unruh
Rok vydání: 2011
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Zoology. 284:198-205
ISSN: 1469-7998
0952-8369
Popis: Resting metabolic rate (RMR) is highly variable between individuals within a single species and the relationship between body mass and RMR does not wholly explain this variability. One factor that could account for a portion of the residual variation is animal personality or consistent individual differences (CIDs) in behaviour, but no study has examined this relationship in a free-living population of mammals. In this paper, we test for a relationship between RMR and CIDs in activity in live-trapped meadow voles Microtus pennsylvanicus after controlling for the effect of body mass. We quantified the activity levels of voles both in an unfamiliar environment and for the first 2 min in the metabolic apparatus, and then measured RMR using open-flow respirometry. As expected, there was a linear relationship between RMR and body mass, and we found strong evidence for repeatable differences in activity levels between individuals. However, contrary to the hypothesis, we did not identify a significant correlation between CIDs in behaviour and RMR after controlling for body mass. Our results suggest that, at least within species, higher activity levels may not require a greater investment in energetically demanding tissues or increased capacity for processing of energy. Alternatively, if a relationship exists, our inability to detect it may reflect a weak behavioural signal in noisy RMR data that are influenced by many factors. Our results could also reflect an artefact of individual responses to stress or a sampling bias towards more exploratory individuals in animals captured by live-trapping.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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