title: Express yourself: bold individuals induce enhanced morphological defences.
abstract: Organisms display an impressive array of defence strategies in nature. Inducible defences (changes in morphology and/or behaviour within a prey's lifetime) allow prey to decrease vulnerability to predators and avoid unnecessary costs of expression. Many studies report considerable interindividual variation in the degree to which inducible defences are expressed, yet what underlies this variation is poorly understood. Here, we show that individuals differing in a key personality trait also differ in the magnitude of morphological defence expression. Crucian carp showing risky behaviours (bold individuals) expressed a significantly greater morphological defence response when exposed to a natural enemy when compared with shy individuals. Furthermore, we show that fish of different personality types differ in their behavioural plasticity, with shy fish exhibiting greater absolute plasticity than bold fish. Our data suggest that individuals with bold personalities may be able to compensate for their risk-prone behavioural type by expressing enhanced morphological defences.
authors: Department of Biology, Aquatic Ecology, Lund University, , Ecology Building, 223 62 Lund, Sweden.
authors: Kaj
authors: K
authors: Hulthén
authors: Ben B
authors: BB
authors: Chapman
authors: P Anders
authors: PA
authors: Nilsson
authors: Johan
authors: J
authors: Hollander
authors: Christer
authors: C
authors: Brönmark
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D001837:Body Weights and Measures; D002347:Carps / Q000502:physiology*; D019370:Observation; D010551:Personality / Q000502:physiology*; D011235:Predatory Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D012309:Risk-Taking; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013548:Sweden
keywords: boldness; individual differences; inducible defence; personality trait; phenotypic plasticity; predator