title: You eat what you are: personality-dependent filial cannibalism in a fish with paternal care.
abstract: Many animal parents invest heavily to ensure offspring survival, yet some eventually consume some or all of their very own young. This so-called filial cannibalism is known from a wide range of taxa, but its adaptive benefit remains largely unclear. The extent to which parents cannibalize their broods varies substantially not only between species, but also between individuals, indicating that intrinsic behavioral differences, or animal personalities, might constitute a relevant proximate trigger for filial cannibalism. Using a marine fish with extensive paternal care, the common goby (Pomatoschistus microps), we investigated the influence of animal personality on filial cannibalism by assessing (1) behavioral consistency across a breeding and a nonbreeding context; (2) correlations between different breeding (egg fanning; filial cannibalism) and nonbreeding (activity) behaviors, and, in a separate experiment; (3) whether previously established personality scores affect filial cannibalism levels. We found consistent individual differences in activity across contexts. Partial filial cannibalism was independent of egg fanning but correlated strongly with activity, where active males cannibalized more eggs than less active males. This pattern was strong initially but vanished as the breeding season progressed. The incidence of whole clutch filial cannibalism increased with activity and clutch size. Our findings indicate that filial cannibalism cannot generally be adjusted independently of male personality and is thus phenotypically less plastic than typically assumed. The present work stresses the multidimensional interaction between animal personality, individual plasticity and the environment in shaping filial cannibalism.
authors.affiliation: Animal Evolutionary Ecology group University of Tübingen 72076 Tübingen Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vallon
authors.affiliation: Animal Evolutionary Ecology group University of Tübingen 72076 Tübingen Germany.
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Grom
authors.affiliation: Animal Evolutionary Ecology group University of Tübingen 72076 Tübingen Germany.
authors.forename: Nadine
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kalb
authors.affiliation: Animal Evolutionary Ecology group University of Tübingen 72076 Tübingen Germany.
authors.forename: Dennis
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sprenger
authors.affiliation: Animal Evolutionary Ecology group University of Tübingen 72076 Tübingen Germany.
authors.forename: Nils
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Anthes
authors.affiliation: Environmental and Marine Biology Åbo Akademi University 20520 Turku Finland.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lindström
authors.affiliation: Animal Evolutionary Ecology group University of Tübingen 72076 Tübingen Germany.
authors.forename: Katja U
authors.initials: KU
authors.lastname: Heubel
keywords: Behavioral syndrome; individual variation; infanticide; parental care; spillover effect