Personality has been reported in a large variety of animal species, but it is not obvious why animals have personality. Variation in physiological traits, such as growth rate, should theoretically affect variation in behaviours and thus can explain why we observe variation in personalities. Growth rate is, theoretically, positively correlated with active personality types. Empirical studies have reported this pattern in different fish species, but there are not yet many studies on endothermic animals. I have therefore scored behaviours of 100 red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) chicks in four personality assays; novel arena, novel object, tonic immobility, and a proactive-reactive test, together with recording variation in growth rate of these individuals. The chicks individual growth rate (% day-1) were calculated and the relationship between personality and growth rate investigated. There was significant difference in growth rate between the sexes, where males grew faster than females, detected already at one week of age. However, no significant correlations between behavioural traits and growth rate were observed, indicating that personality seem to be independent of growth rate. Further studies should therefore investigate the generality of this finding, and alternative underlying mechanisms for variation in personality should be explored.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:liu-95482 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Calais, Andreas |
| Publisher | Linköpings universitet, Institutionen för fysik, kemi och biologi, Linköpings universitet, Tekniska högskolan |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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