title: Sexual differences in exploration behavior in Xenopus tropicalis?
abstract: The two sexes of a species often differ in many ways. How sexes differ depends on the selective context, with females often investing more in reproductive output and males in territory defense and resource acquisition. This also implies that behavioral strategies may differ between the two sexes, allowing them to optimize their fitness in a given ecological context. Here, we investigated whether males and females differ in their exploration behavior in an aquatic frog (Xenopus tropicalis). Moreover, we explored whether females show different behavioral strategies in the exploration of a novel environment as has been demonstrated previously for males of the same species. Our results show significant sex differences, with males exploring their environment more than females. Yet, similar to males, female exploratory behavior varied significantly among individuals and broadly fell into three categories: shy, intermediate and bold. Moreover, like in males, behavioral strategies are decoupled from morphology and performance. Our results suggest that females are more sedentary than males, with males engaging in greater risk taking by exploring novel environments more. Male and female behaviors could, however, be classified into similar groups, with some individuals being bolder than others and displaying more exploration behavior. The decoupling of morphology and performance from behavior appears to be a general feature in the species and may allow selection to act on both types of traits independently.
authors.affiliation: UMR 7179 CNRS/MNHN, Département d'Ecologie et de Gestion de la Biodiversité, 57 rue Cuvier, Case postale 55, Paris 75231, Cedex 5, France.
authors.forename: Mathieu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Videlier
authors.affiliation: Origine, Structure et Evolution de la Biodiversité, UMR 7205 CNRS/MNHN, 45 rue Buffon, Paris 75005, France.
authors.forename: Raphaël
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cornette
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecology & Conservation, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE, UK.
authors.forename: Camille
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bonneaud
authors.affiliation: UMR 7179 CNRS/MNHN, Département d'Ecologie et de Gestion de la Biodiversité, 57 rue Cuvier, Case postale 55, Paris 75231, Cedex 5, France Evolutionary Morphology of Vertebrates, Department of Biology, Ghent University, K. L. Ledeganckstraat 35, Gent B-9000, Belgium anthony.herrel@mnhn.fr.
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Herrel
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001070:Appetitive Behavior; D005106:Exploratory Behavior; D005260:Female; D008124:Locomotion; D008297:Male; D010641:Phenotype; D012737:Sex Factors; D014981:Xenopus / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Frog; Locomotion; Morphology; Performance; Sexual dimorphism