No description available.

Il y a de plus en plus de preuves que les animaux diffèrent de façon constante dans leur tendance à se servir de l’information sociale et de l’information personnelle, et ces différences interindividuelles sont corrélées avec des traits de personnalité tels que l’hardiesse et l’exploration. Le lien entre la personnalité et l’utilisation d’information sociale serait attribué au fait que les performances cognitives des individus affectent non seulement leur personnalité, mais aussi leur habileté à acquérir de l’information personnelle fiable. La présente étude cherchait à déterminer si les femelles diamant mandarin qui ont tendance à se fier à l’information sociale dans des contextes de choix de partenaire et d’alimentation démontrent également un niveau de contrôle de soi plus faible, une mesure que nous avons utilisée pour évaluer leur capacité à discriminer entre deux alternatives. Nous avons observé que les femelles plus impulsives ont une plus grande tendance à se servir de l’information sociale que celles qui démontrent un degré de contrôle de soi plus élevé. Ainsi, nos résultats suggèrent fortement que les différences individuelles dans les capacités cognitives auraient contribué à l'émergence et au maintien des personnalités animales. / There is increasing evidence that animals differ consistently in their tendency to weight social and personal information and these inter-individual differences have been found to correlate with personality traits, such as boldness or exploratory tendency. One reason that could explain the relationship between personality and social information use is that cognitive capacities of individuals affect both their personality and their ability to acquire reliable personal information. Our study aimed to determine if female zebra finches that relied on social information in a mating and a foraging context also demonstrated a low level of self-control, used as a measure of their ability to discriminate accurately among alternatives. Supporting our expectations, we found that the most impulsive females consistently relied on social information to a greater extent than those that demonstrated higher levels of self control. Thus, our findings strongly suggest that individual differences in cognitive abilities have contributed to the emergence and maintenance of animal personalities.

La dynamique d’une population résulte de la combinaison de plusieurs traits d’histoire de vie qui sont façonnés par l’histoire évolutive de cette population. L’altération d’un de ces traits par des contraintes environnementales peut donc avoir des effets sur la persistance de la population. Les ajustements individuels de certains traits phénotypiques pourraient permettre à cette population de répondre rapidement à ces contraintes sans la nécessité immédiate d’adaptations génétiques. Durant cette thèse, la variabilité de certains traits a été identifiée chez 3 espèces sentinelles des écosystèmes polaires. Ces résultats permettent de mieux comprendre les associations entre ces traits et les pressions évolutives qui en sont à l’origine, ainsi que l’importance de traits tels que la personnalité dans la part inexpliquée de la variabilité de la valeur sélective des individus. A terme, nous pourrions ainsi mieux évaluer la capacité d’adaptation des populations face aux changements globaux. / Population dynamics is driven by several life history traits shaped by the evolutionary history of the population. The alteration of one of these traits by environmental constraints may thus have effects on the population persistence. Individual adjustments of some phenotypic traits could then enable this population to rapidly respond to these constraints without the immediate necessity of genetic adaptations. During this PhD project, we identified variability in some of these traits in 3 sentinel species of polar ecosystems. These results allowed us to better understand the associations between these traits and the evolutionary pressures underlying these associations, as well as the importance of traits such as personality in the amount of variability in individuals’ fitness that remains unexplained. In the long term, we should then be able to better gauge the adaptive capacity of populations to face global changes.

Il y a de plus en plus de preuves que les animaux diffèrent de façon constante dans leur tendance à se servir de l’information sociale et de l’information personnelle, et ces différences interindividuelles sont corrélées avec des traits de personnalité tels que l’hardiesse et l’exploration. Le lien entre la personnalité et l’utilisation d’information sociale serait attribué au fait que les performances cognitives des individus affectent non seulement leur personnalité, mais aussi leur habileté à acquérir de l’information personnelle fiable. La présente étude cherchait à déterminer si les femelles diamant mandarin qui ont tendance à se fier à l’information sociale dans des contextes de choix de partenaire et d’alimentation démontrent également un niveau de contrôle de soi plus faible, une mesure que nous avons utilisée pour évaluer leur capacité à discriminer entre deux alternatives. Nous avons observé que les femelles plus impulsives ont une plus grande tendance à se servir de l’information sociale que celles qui démontrent un degré de contrôle de soi plus élevé. Ainsi, nos résultats suggèrent fortement que les différences individuelles dans les capacités cognitives auraient contribué à l'émergence et au maintien des personnalités animales. / There is increasing evidence that animals differ consistently in their tendency to weight social and personal information and these inter-individual differences have been found to correlate with personality traits, such as boldness or exploratory tendency. One reason that could explain the relationship between personality and social information use is that cognitive capacities of individuals affect both their personality and their ability to acquire reliable personal information. Our study aimed to determine if female zebra finches that relied on social information in a mating and a foraging context also demonstrated a low level of self-control, used as a measure of their ability to discriminate accurately among alternatives. Supporting our expectations, we found that the most impulsive females consistently relied on social information to a greater extent than those that demonstrated higher levels of self control. Thus, our findings strongly suggest that individual differences in cognitive abilities have contributed to the emergence and maintenance of animal personalities.

Previous studies have shown that we can measure personality not only of humans but of animals as well including domestic cats (Felis catus). Results of studies have also shown that personality of the domestic cat might be influenced by various factors e.g. age, gender or breed of the cat. Although only a few studies were focused on association between owner personality and behavioral profile of their cat. The aim of our study was to explore association between the personality of the owners and the behavioral profile of their cats assessed by their owners. We used correlations for analysing data. The sample included 404 respondents (women), who filled in a Czech translation of BFI-2 and a Czech translation of the Feline Five Questionnaire for their cats (the cat sample consists of 194 males and 210 females). Our results showed a set of correlations between personality factors of the owner and behavioral factors of her cat. The strongest positive correlation was measured between consciousness of the owner and extraversion of her cat. One possible explanation of these associations is based on the Similarity-Attraction Hypothesis, which means that the owner chooses an animal that is similar to her in various characteristics. According to another theory the owner projects her own characteristics into...

Throughout the animal kingdom, individuals often differ consistently from one another in how they cope with their environment. In particular, consistent behavioural variation, known as animal personality, is a substantial driver of a range of important ecological and evolutionary processes. As most animal species are social for at least part of their lives and group living is common, a crucial link between personality and the social context may be expected. In this thesis I systematically investigate this link, using three-spined stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus) as my model system. I begin by showing that fish vary consistently in their boldness and sociability, with only boldness being positively linked to food intake for fish at rest. This finding provides support for evolutionary theory that links personality variation to life-history strategies, and lays the basis for work related to the social context. I continue by investigating how the social context may modulate personality variation and show that short contact with a social group may have carry-over effects and obfuscate personality expression when individuals are alone. Next, I observed fish in different pairs over time and found that social experience from both the current as well as previous social contexts are integrated in the risk-taking and leadership decisions of individuals but also depends on their boldness type. This result provides support for the importance of social feedback in the expression of personality differences. I go on to demonstrate that, in a pair, bolder fish have lower social attraction, with positive effects on individual’s leadership but negative effects on social coordination. Finally, by detailed tracking of the collective movements and group foraging of free-swimming shoals, I reveal boldness and sociability have complementary driving effects of on social structure, collective behaviour, and group functioning. Furthermore, I show that in turn the group composition determines the performance of individual personality types, providing a potential adaptive explanation for the maintenance of personality variation. Taken together, these studies provide an integrated account of animal personality and the social context and highlight the presence of a feedback loop between them, with personality variation being a key driver of collective behaviour and group functioning but also strongly affected and potentially maintained by it.