Escape responses (reaction to a predator or threatening stimulus) are one of the most critical behaviour to determine the survival of individuals. In recent years, it has become apparent that individuals differ consistently from one another in their behaviour, often called ‘animal personality variation’. Boldness, which refers to the extent to which animals take risks, is a major personality trait that has important ecological and evolutionary implications. While it is widely accepted that boldest animals can benefit from a greater access to food, how and why bolder individuals are more likely to be preyed upon remain to be investigated.
In this project I study how the relationship between boldness, food intake and predation risk shapes anti-predator escape responses, and explain how mortality risk can generate personality variation in boldness. For this purpose, I test individuals and groups of three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) in an experimental setup that tracks the movement of individuals on real-time and automatically triggers a decoy predator. Second, I couple this experimental data with computer simulations to provide new insights into the evolution schooling behaviour and maintenance of personality variation under different ecological conditions.
Society may benefit from this project because understanding the factors that affect animal survival is important for species conservation. Additionally, I bring new tools to investigate escape responses in animals, that can be used in natural or laboratory conditions. Finally, the results from computer simulations could be of use to develop new advances in the collective motion of robots, that have countless applications for society.
